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Global Poverty

What is global poverty? That thing called poverty – how exactly is it defined? What does it mean to lead an
impoverished life? Poverty is much more than just statistics about economies, hunger, and homelessness. Poverty is
a state of life, affecting all of humanity.

Poverty is most commonly defined by economic standards, based on income levels and access to basic human
necessities, such as food, water, and shelter. Poverty is often described with a scale, ranging from extreme to
moderate levels. The internationally agreed-upon measurement of extreme poverty currently lies at $1.25 a day,
with the next lowest measure of poverty standing at $2 per day. The geographic breakdown of regions with the
highest levels of poverty ranging from worst to best include: Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Pacific East Asia, Latin
America and the Caribbean, North Africa and the Middle East, and Europe and Central Asia.

Poverty has many ties to physical health as well, as the world’s poorest countries consistently demonstrate the
lowest life expectancies. Most of these health problems can be traced back to unsafe drinking water and
malnutrition, which causes an estimated 8 million people to die every year in addition to 30,000 children’s deaths
per day.

Another problem with poverty is the acts of desperation it drives people to. When humans are deprived of basic life
necessities, they are forced to take desperate measures to change their bleak future. Historically, poverty has proven
to be the cause of much violence and conflict and continues to be so today. In many situations human trafficking,
the use of child soldiers, and prostitution can all be linked to poverty.

In what is perhaps a testament to the subjective definition of poverty, there are mixed results in reducing poverty
levels today. According to data from The Economist, nearly one billion people have been lifted out of chronic
poverty over the last two decades. While this initially sounds very positive, one must also consider the huge levels
of wealth disparity that have shot up in this same time, as the poorest 20 percent of the world’s population uses a
mere 1.3 percent of global resources in contrast to the richest 20% consuming an approximated 86 percent of the
world’s resources.

Poverty can be a controversial subject in modern society, as individuals have different understandings of what it
means to be poor and what appropriate solutions to poverty should look like. Skeptics criticize the economic
definition of poverty because it fails to factor in quality of life. Rather than focusing on pure economic data, most
agree that the definition of poverty must also include political and cultural factors and access to opportunities,
education, and healthcare. If there’s one thing that can be agreed on, it would be that poverty is a real problem
affecting millions of people around the world today, and poverty is a complex issue with multiple layers.
– Allison Meade
 Global Poverty

The world is making huge strides in overcoming global poverty. Since 1990, a quarter of the world has risen out of
extreme poverty. Now, less than 10 percent of the world lives in extreme poverty, surviving on $1.90 a day or less.

When families move out of poverty, children’s health and well-being improve. Since 1990, the number of children
dying — mostly from preventable causes such as poverty, hunger, and disease — is less than half of what it was,
dropping from more than 35,000 a day to under 15,000.

While progress continues, fragile contexts and countries affected by conflict, poor governance, and natural
disasters, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, have seen an increase in people living in poverty.

World Vision is committed to ending poverty and helping every child experience Jesus’ promise of life in all its
fullness (John 10:10). Though eradicating global poverty is hard, particularly in fragile contexts, World Vision
believes there is reason to hope.

Ending global poverty is a priority not only for World Vision. By 2030, as part of the United Nations’ Sustainable
Development Goals, global leaders aim to eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere.

History of the eradication of poverty

In the past two hundred years, the world has made tremendous progress in ending global poverty.

Image courtesy of Our World in Data

1820: The vast majority of the world lived in extreme poverty 200 years ago. Only a small elite segment enjoyed
higher standards of living. Since then, economic growth has transformed our world, lifting more people out of
poverty even while population numbers have multiplied sevenfold.

1945: Following World War II, representatives of 50 countries signed the U.N. Charter, which acknowledged that
maintaining peace is connected with improved social development and social justice.

1964: President Lyndon Johnson declared “war on poverty” in the United States.

1970: The number of people living in extreme poverty peaked at 2.2 billion.

1981: The World Bank began collecting data on global poverty. Mostly through household surveys, they found that
44 percent of the world lived in extreme poverty.

1990: The World Bank defined extreme poverty as people living on $1 or less a day. Around 1.85 billion people, or 36
percent of the world’s population, lived in extreme poverty. Nearly half the population in developing countries lived
on less than $1.25 a day.

1992: The U.N. adopted Agenda 21, committing to work together to combat global poverty using country-specific
solutions.

1995: The United Nations brought together the largest gathering of world leaders until then, at the World Summit
for Social Development, where leaders wrote the Copenhagen Declaration as a pledge to eradicate poverty.
1997: The U.N. General Assembly declared the First U.N. Decade for Eradication of Poverty from 1997 to 2006,
taking the commitment from the Copenhagen Declaration and putting it into action.

2000: All 191 United Nations member states signed the Millennium Development Goals, eight goals to achieve by
2015, including reducing extreme poverty rates — then calculated as people living on less than $1 a day — by half.

2008: The World Bank re-established the international poverty line as people living on $1.25 a day, using 2005
prices for the cost of living. U.N. leaders declared the Second U.N. Decade for Eradication of Poverty from 2008 to
2017, expanding on the success of the first decade and focusing on jobs and income generation as a way to combat
poverty.

2010: The Millennium Development Goal of reducing the 1990 extreme poverty rates by half was achieved five years
earlier than expected.

2012: The U.N. General Assembly adopted a new resolution about the future they want, recognizing that,
“Eradicating poverty is the greatest global challenge facing the world today.”

2015: The World Bank raised the international poverty line from $1.25 a day to $1.90, based on 2011 prices for the
cost of living. Also, United Nations member states adopted the Sustainable Development Goals, which include
goals to end poverty and hunger in all their forms.