EASILY The Most Under-Reported Major Story of the Last 25 Years
The reduction in world poverty.
The global population living in extreme poverty has fallen below 750 million for the first time since the World Bank began collecting global statistics in 1990, a decline of more than 1 billion people in the past 25 years.
In a report released Wednesday, the World Bank said the extreme poverty rate had dropped to 10% as of 2015, the latest comprehensive data, and they estimate that the decline has continued over the past three years....
The report highlights the extent to which global poverty has shifted geographically. In 1990, nearly 1 billion of those living in extreme poverty were in East Asia, but decades of rapid economic development in China and other East Asian economies has brought that figure down to 47 million, a decline to a 2% poverty rate from 62%.
South Asia, with most of its population in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, has seen the number living in extreme poverty fall to 216 million from more than 500 million, to 12% from 47%.
Sub-Saharan Africa has made less progress. Its poverty rate has fallen to 41% from 54% since 1990, but population growth has been so rapid that the number of people in extreme poverty has climbed above 400 million, from 278 million in 1990.
I could say something snarky about Western advice given to Africa being pretty much the opposite of what caused much of Asia to escape poverty, but I will leave this a good news story. We have had more articles in a week about what one judge did or did not do 30 years ago in high school than their have been in 25 years about this great good news.
