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 The
Millennium Development Goals call for reducing the proportion of
people living on less than $1 a day to half the 1990 level by 2015 -
from 27.9 percent of all people in low and middle income economies
to 14.0 percent. The Goals also call for halving the proportion of
people who suffer from hunger between 1990 and 2015.
If projected growth remains on track, global
poverty rates will fall to 12.7 percent – less
than half the 1990 level – and 363 million more people will avert
extreme poverty. And while poverty would not be eradicated, that
would bring us much closer to the day when we can say that
all the world's people have at least the bare minimum to eat and
clothe themselves. Progress in eradicating hunger, on the other
hand, has been slow and the situation has been worsening in some
regions.
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Target
1
Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the
proportion of people whose income is less than one dollar a
day.
Target
2
Halve, between 1990 and
2015, the proportion of people who suffer from
hunger.
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Target
1 Halve,
between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less
than one dollar a day.
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Poverty level down since 1990, but progress is
uneven: There were at least 118 million fewer people living in
extreme poverty at the decade’s end than at its beginning. And if
projected growth remains on track, global poverty rates will fall to
12.5 percent – less than half the 1990 level – and 366 million more
people will avert extreme poverty. But rapid progress in Asia and a
return to pre-transition poverty levels in Europe and Central Asia
will do nothing to alleviate the crushing burden of poverty in
Sub-Saharan Africa, where more than 314 million people will continue
to live on less than $1 a day.
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Progress toward the
poverty goal and projections to 2015
Over the last decade, poverty rates have
declined in many regions, except for Europe and Central Asia, the
Middle East and North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa. The greatest
number of poor people live in South Asia, but the proportion of poor
is highest in Sub-Saharan Africa, where slow economic growth has
left millions at the margins of survival.
Per capita
consumption of $1 a day represents a minimum standard of living,
yet more than a billion people live on less. In middle-income
economies a poverty line of $2 is closer to the practical minimum.
In 2001 an estimated 2.73 billion people were living on less than $2
a day - more than half population in the developing world. The
numbers living on less than $2 a day will continue to rise in the
Middle East and North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa. Improvements
will be greatest in East Asia and Pacific. But by 2015, if present
trends continue, the poverty rate measured at this higher line will
have fallen by no more than 20 percent from its 1990
level. |
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Target 2 Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of
people who suffer from hunger.
Malnutrition plays a
role in more than half of all child deaths. Malnutrition in children
is caused by consuming too little food energy to meet the body's
needs. Adding to the problem are diets that lack essential
nutrients, illnesses that deplete those nutrients, and
undernourished mothers who give birth to underweight children.
Raising incomes and reducing poverty is part
of the answer. But even poor countries need not suffer high rates of
child malnutrition. They can make big improvements through such
low-cost measures as nutrition education and micronutrient
supplement and fortification. Other things that help include
improving the status and education of women, increasing government
commitment to health and nutrition, and developing an effective
health infrastructure. |
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Child
malnutrition levels in the first and the second half of the
1990s
Prevalence rates of underweight children have
been falling in most regions, but too slowly to achieve the
2015 target, and in many regions the number of hungry people
continues to grow. By 2001, only the East Asia and Pacific and
Latin America and the Caribbean regions had fewer
undernourished people than 10 years earlier. For prevalence
rates of underweight children, progress have been fastest in
East Asia and the Pacific, where child malnutrition rates
declined by 33 percent, and South Asia, where rates declined
25 percent. But many countries, especially in Sub-Saharan
Africa, lag behind.
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 Millennium
Development Goals Malnutrition and Hunger
Millennium
Development Goals Education
Millennium
Development Goals Gender Equality
Millennium
Development Goals Regions South Asia
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Change in the proportion of population consuming too
little food to maintain normal level of activity
Since 1990-92 the number of
undernourished people in developing countries has fallen by 20
million, and the prevalence of undernourishment by 3
percentage points. Regional trends show the greatest progress
in East Asia and Pacific, but the rates of malnutrition remain
high in South Asia, and they are rising in Sub-Saharan
Africa |
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