WORLD POVERTY IS STILL PERSISTING IN 2015

World poverty is still persisting in 2015

---Dr. Debesh Bhowmik

The World Bank has estimated the poverty line as the expenditure of 1.25 US$ per capita per day .On the basis of this measurement the world poverty is projected to decline at 970 million in 2015 compared to 1.2 billion in 2010 that is the poverty may reduce from 20.6% to 15.5% in which the progress of poverty in East Asia and the Pacific is promising because it will step down from 215 million in 2010 to 115 million in 2015 ie from 12.5% to 5.5%.The decline of poverty in South Asia is also more than expected since poverty stricken people was 507million in 2010 that will decreased to 406 million in 2015 – clearly a reduction from 31% to 23.2%.But the poverty amelioration in Europe and Central Asia and Latin America and Caribbean showed a little improvement .Even the Sub Saharan Africa will be able to cut poverty from 414 million to 408  million during the said period. The one and only exception is Middle East and North Africa where poverty rate has been rising from 2.4% in 2010 to 2.6% in 2015 ie from 8million poverty stricken people to 9 million. If ceteris paribus prevails, the target to achieve half of the world poverty stricken people has been failed. More over, the climate change and financial crisis may stipulate these figures.

	2010(in million)	2015(in million)
World	1260 (20.6%)	970 (15.5)
East Asia and Pacific	215 (12.5%)	115 (5.5%)
Europe and Central Asia	3 (0.7%)	2 (0.4%)
Latin America and Caribbean	32 (5.5%)	30 (4.9%)
Middle East and North Africa	8 (2.4%)	9 (2.6%)
South Asia	507 (31%)	406 (23.2%)
Sub Saharan Africa	414 (48.5%)	408 (42.3%)

Source-WDR-2013,      

We also observed that world inequality is too high ie a wide gap between the income share of lowest and highest 20% and it is widening gradually. The income share of highest 20% in Argentina(49.4%), Belarus(35.8%),Brazil(58.6%), China(47.1%),Columbia(60.7%), Dominican(52.8%),Ecuador(53.89%),Indonesia(46.0%),Kyrgyz(41.4%),Mexico(52.8%),Moldova(41.2%),Nigeria(46.1%),Paraguay(56.4%),Poland(40.9%),Romania(36.1%),Thailand(46.7%),Turkey(46.0%) and Uruguay(50.9%).On the other hand income share of lowest 20% are in Argentina(4.4%), Belarus(9.4%),Brazil(2.9%),China(4.7%), Columbia(3.0%), Dominican(4.7%),Ecuador(4.3%), Indonesia(7.3%),Kyrgyz(7.7%),Mexico(4.9%),Moldova(7.8%),Nigeria(5.9%),Paraguay(3.3%),Poland(7.9%),Romania(8.8%),Thailand(6.8%),Turkey(5.5%) and Uruguay(4.9%) respectively during 2008-2010.

Naturally , poverty and inequality is the barrier of sustainable world development and in increasing human development in spite of several target oriented projects in fulfilling  MDG in the world economy as a whole.