Number of people living in extreme poverty since 1820
Absolute poverty rates (percentage of people in extreme poverty) by country, as measured by the World Bank in 2014 based on the 2011 constant PPP international dollar.
Extreme poverty, abject poverty, absolute poverty, destitution, or penury, was originally defined by the United Nations
(UN) in 1995 as "a condition characterized by severe deprivation of
basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation
facilities, health, shelter, education and information. It depends not
only on income but also on access to services." In 2018, extreme poverty widely refers to an income below the international poverty line of $1.90 per day (in 2011 prices, equivalent to $2.12 in 2018), set by the World Bank.
This is the equivalent of $1.00 a day in 1996 US prices, hence the
widely used expression "living on less than a dollar a day". The vast majority of those in extreme poverty — 96 percent — reside in South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, the West Indies, East Asia, and the Pacific; nearly half live in India and China alone. As of 2018, it is estimated that the country with the most people living in extreme poverty is Nigeria, at 86 million.
In the past, the majority of the world population lived in conditions of extreme poverty. According to United Nations estimates, in 2015 roughly 734 million people remained under those conditions.
The number had previously been measured as 1.9 billion in 1990, and 1.2
billion in 2008. Despite the significant number of individuals still
under the international poverty line, these figures represent
significant progress for the international community, as they reflect a
decrease of more than one billion people over 15 years. However, in public opinion around the world, people surveyed tend to incorrectly think that extreme poverty has not decreased.
The reduction of extreme poverty and hunger was the first Millennium Development Goal
(MDG1), as set by the United Nations in 2000. Specifically, the target
was to reduce the extreme poverty rate by half by 2015, a goal that was
met five years ahead of schedule. In the Sustainable Development Goals,
which succeeded the MDGs, the goal is to end extreme poverty in all its
forms everywhere. With this declaration the international community,
including the UN and the World Bank have adopted the target of ending
extreme poverty by 2030.
Definition
Consumption-based definition
Extreme
poverty is defined by the international community as living on less
than $1.90 a day, as measured in 2011 international prices (equivalent
to $2.12 in 2018). This number, also known as the international poverty line,
is periodically updated to account for inflation and differences in the
cost of living; it was originally defined at $1.00 a day in 1996. The
updates are made according to new price data to portray the costs of
basic food, clothing, and shelter around the world as accurately as
possible. The latest revision was made in 2015 when the World Bank
increased the line to international-$1.90.
Because many of the world's poorest people do not have a monetary
income, the poverty measurement is based on the monetary value of a
person's consumption. Otherwise the poverty measurement would be missing the home production of subsistence farmers that consume largely their own production.
Alternative definitions
The
$1.90/day extreme poverty line remains the most widely used metric as
it highlights the reality of those in the most severe conditions.
Although widely used by most international organizations, it has come
under scrutiny due to a variety of factors. For example, it does not
account for how far below the line people are, referred to as the depth
of poverty. For this purpose, the same institutions publish data on the poverty gap.
The international poverty line is designed to stay constant over
time, to allow comparisons between different years. It is therefore a
measure of absolute poverty and is not measuring relative poverty. It is also not designed to capture how people view their own financial situation (known as the socially subjective poverty line). Moreover, the calculation of the poverty line relies on information about consumer prices to calculate purchasing power parity,
which are very hard to measure and are necessarily debatable. As with
all other metrics, there may also be missing data from the poorest and
most fragile countries.
Several alternative instruments for measuring extreme poverty
have been suggested which incorporate other factors such as malnutrition
and lack of access to a basic education. The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), based on the Alkire-Foster Method, is published by the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative
(OPHI): it measures deprivation in basic needs and can be broken down
to reflect both the incidence and the intensity of poverty. For example,
under conventional measures, in both Ethiopia and Uzbekistan about 40%
of the population is considered extremely poor, but based on the MPI,
90% of Ethiopians but only 2% of Uzbekistanis are in multidimensional
poverty.
The MPI is useful for development officials to determine the most
likely causes of poverty within a region, using the M0 measure of the
method (which is calculated by multiplying the fraction of people in
poverty by the fraction of dimensions they are deprived in). For example, in the Gaza Strip
of Palestine, using the M0 measure of the Alkire-Foster method reveals
that poverty in the region is primarily caused by a lack of access to
electricity, lack of access to drinking water, and widespread
overcrowding. In contrast, data from the Chhukha District of Bhutan reveals that income is a much larger contributor to poverty as opposed to other dimensions within the region. However, the MPI only presents data from 105 countries, so it cannot be used for global measurements.
Current trends
Getting to zero
Various projections for the prospect of ending extreme poverty by 2030. The y-axis represents the percentage of people living in extreme poverty worldwide.
Using the World Bank definition of $1.90/day, as of 2016, roughly 734
million people remained in extreme poverty (or roughly 1 in 10 people
worldwide). Nearly half of them live in India and China, with more than
85% living in just 20 countries. Since the mid-1990s, there has been a
steady decline in both the worldwide poverty rate and the total number
of extreme poor. In 1990, the percentage of the global population living
in extreme poverty was 43%, but in 2011, that percentage had dropped
down to 21%.
This halving of the extreme poverty rate falls in line with the first
Millennium Development Goal (MDG1) proposed by former UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan,
who called on the international community at the turn of the century to
reduce the percentage of people in extreme poverty by half by 2015.
This reduction in extreme poverty took place most notably in
China, Indonesia, India, Pakistan and Vietnam. These five countries
accounted for the alleviation of 715 million people out of extreme
poverty between 1990 and 2010 – more than the global net total of
roughly 700 million. This statistical oddity can be explained by the
fact that the number of people living in extreme poverty in Sub-Saharan
Africa rose from 290 million to 414 million over the same period.
However, there have been many positive signs for extensive, global
poverty reduction as well. Since 1999, the total number of extreme poor
has declined by an average of 50 million per year. Moreover, in 2005,
for the first time in recorded history, poverty rates began to fall in
every region of the world, including Africa.
As aforementioned, the number of people living in extreme poverty
has reduced from 1.9 billion to 766 million over the span of the last
decades. If we remain on our current trajectory, many economists predict
we could reach global zero by 2030–2035, thus ending extreme poverty.
Global zero entails a world in which fewer than 3% of the global
population lives in extreme poverty (projected under most optimistic
scenarios to be fewer than 200 million people). This zero figure is set
at 3% in recognition of the fact that some amount of frictional
(temporary) poverty will continue to exist, whether it is caused by
political conflict or unexpected economic fluctuations, at least for the
foreseeable future. However, the Brookings Institution
notes that any projection about poverty more than a few years into the
future runs the risk of being highly uncertain. This is because changes
in consumption and distribution throughout the developing world over the
next two decades could result in monumental shifts in global poverty,
for better or worse.
Others are more pessimistic about this possibility, predicting a
range of 193 million to 660 million people still living in extreme
poverty by 2035. Additionally, some believe the rate of poverty
reduction will slow down in the developing world, especially in Africa,
and as such it will take closer to five decades to reach global zero.
Despite these reservations, several prominent international and
national organizations, including the UN, the World Bank and the United
States Federal Government (via USAID), have set a target of reaching
global zero by the end of 2030.
Exacerbating factors
There
are a variety of factors that may reinforce or instigate the existence
of extreme poverty, such as weak institutions, cycles of violence and a
low level of growth. Recent World Bank research shows that some
countries can get caught in a "fragility trap", in which
self-reinforcing factors prevent the poorest nations from emerging from
low-level equilibrium in the long run.
Moreover, most of the reduction in extreme poverty over the past twenty
years has taken place in countries that have not experienced a civil
conflict or have had governing institutions with a strong capacity to
actually govern. Thus, to end extreme poverty, it is also important to
focus on the interrelated problems of fragility and conflict.
USAID defines fragility as a government's lack of both legitimacy
(the perception the government is adequate at doing its job) and
effectiveness (how good the government is at maintaining law and order,
in an equitable manner). As fragile nations are unable to equitably and
effectively perform the functions of a state, these countries are much
more prone to violent unrest and mass inequality. Additionally, in
countries with high levels of inequality (a common problem in countries
with inadequate governing institutions), much higher growth rates are
needed to reduce the rate of poverty when compared with other nations.
Additionally, if China and India are removed from the equation, up to
70% of the world's poor live in fragile states by some definitions of
fragility. Some analysts project that extreme poverty will be
increasingly concentrated in fragile, low-income states like Haiti,
Yemen and the Central African Republic. However, some academics, such as Andy Sumner,
say that extreme poverty will be increasingly concentrated in
middle-income countries, creating a paradox where the world's poor don't
actually live in the poorest countries.
To help low-income, fragile states make the transition towards
peace and prosperity, the New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States,
endorsed by roughly forty countries and multilateral institutions, was
created in 2011. This represents an important step towards redressing
the problem of fragility as it was originally articulated by
self-identified fragile states who called on the international community
to not only "do things differently", but to also "do different things".
Civil conflict also remains a prime cause for the perpetuation of
poverty throughout the developing world. Armed conflict can have severe
effects on economic growth for many reasons such as the destruction of
assets, destruction of livelihoods, creation of unwanted mass migration,
and diversion of public resources towards war.
Significantly, a country that experienced major violence during
1981–2005 had extreme poverty rates 21 percentage points higher than a
country with no violence. On average, each civil conflict will costs a
country roughly 30 years of GDP growth.
Therefore, a renewed commitment from the international community to
address the deteriorating situation in highly fragile states is
necessary to both prevent the mass loss of life, but to also prevent the
vicious cycle of extreme poverty.
Population trends and dynamics (e.g. population growth) can also
have a large impact on prospects for poverty reduction. According to the
United Nations, "in addition to improving general health and
well-being, analysis shows that meeting the reproductive health and
contraceptive needs of all women in the developing world more than pays
for itself").
In 2013, a prevalent finding in a report by the World Bank was
that extreme poverty is most prevalent in low-income countries. In these
countries, the World Bank found that progress in poverty reduction is
the slowest, the poor live under the worst conditions, and the most
affected persons are children age 12 and under.
International initiatives
Millennium Summit
Official logos for each of the Millennium Development Goals.
In September 2000, world leaders gathered at the Millennium Summit held in New York, launching the United Nations Millennium Project suggested by then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Prior to the launch of the conference, the office of Secretary-General
Annan released a report entitled We The Peoples: The Role of the United
Nations in the 21st Century. In this document, now widely known as the
Millennium Report, Kofi Annan called on the international community to
reduce the proportion of people in extreme poverty by half by 2015, a
target that would affect over 1 billion people. Citing the close
correlation between economic growth and the reduction of poverty in poor
countries, Annan urged international leaders to indiscriminately target
the problem of extreme poverty across every region.
In charge of managing the project was Jeffrey Sachs, a noted
development economist, who in 2005 released a plan for action called
"Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium
Development Goals." Thomas Pogge criticized the 2000 Millennium Declaration for being less ambitious than a previous declaration from the World Food Summit due to using 1990 as the benchmark rather than 1996.
2005 World Summit
The 2005 World Summit, held in September and was organized to measure international progress towards fulfilling the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs). Notably, the conference brought together more than 170 Heads of
State. While world leaders at the summit were encouraged by the
reduction of poverty in some nations, they were concerned by the uneven
decline of poverty within and among different regions of the globe.
However, at the end of the summit, the conference attendees reaffirmed
the UN's commitment to achieve the MDGs by 2015 and urged all
supranational, national and non-governmental organizations to follow
suit.
Sustainable Development Goals
As the expiration of the Millennium Development Goals approached in 2015, the UN convened a panel to advise on a Post-2015 Development Agenda, which led to a new set of goals for 2030 titled the Sustainable Development Goals.
Overall, there has been significant progress towards reducing
extreme poverty, with the MDG1 target of reducing extreme poverty rates
by half being met five years early, representing 700 million people
being lifted out of extreme poverty from 1990 to 2010, with 1.2 billion
people still remaining under those conditions.
The notable exception to this trend was in Sub-Saharan Africa, the only
region where the number of people living in extreme poverty rose from
290 million in 1990 to 414 million in 2010, comprising more than a third
of those living in extreme poverty worldwide.
The HLP report, entitled A New Global Partnership: Eradicate
Poverty and Transform Economies Through Sustainable Development, was
published in May 2013. In the report, the HLP wrote that:
Ending extreme poverty is just the beginning, not the end. It is vital, but our vision must be broader: to start countries on the path of sustainable development – building on the foundations established by the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro12, and meeting a challenge that no country, developed or developing, has met so far. We recommend to the Secretary-General that deliberations on a new development agenda must be guided by the vision of eradicating extreme poverty once and for all, in the context of sustainable development.
Thus, the report determined that a central goal of the
Post-Millennium Development agenda is to eradicate extreme poverty by
2030. However, the report also emphasized that the MDGs were not enough
on their own, as they did not "focus on the devastating effects of
conflict and violence on development…the importance to development of
good governance and institution…nor the need for inclusive growth..."
Consequently, there now exists synergy between the policy position
papers put forward by the United States (through USAID), the World Bank
and the UN itself in terms of viewing fragility and a lack of good
governance as exacerbating extreme poverty. However, in a departure from
the views of other organizations, the commission also proposed that the
UN focus not only on extreme poverty (a line drawn at $1.25), but also
on a higher target, such as $2. The report notes this change could be
made to reflect the fact that escaping extreme poverty is only a first
step.
In addition to the UN, a host of other supranational and national
actors such as the European Union and the African Union have published
their own positions or recommendations on what should be incorporated in
the Post-2015 agenda. The European Commission's communication,
published in A decent Life for all: from vision to collective action,
affirmed the UN's commitment to "eradicate extreme poverty in our
lifetime and put the world on a sustainable path to ensure a decent life
for all by 2030". A unique vision of the report was the Commission's
environmental focus (in addition to a plethora of other goals such as
combating hunger and gender inequality). Specifically, the Commission
argued, "long-term poverty reduction…requires inclusive and sustainable
growth. Growth should create decent jobs, take place with resource
efficiency and within planetary boundaries, and should support efforts
to mitigate climate change."
The African Union's report, entitled Common African Position (CAP) on
the Post-2015 Development Agenda, likewise encouraged the international
community to focus on eradicating the twin problems of poverty and
exclusion in our lifetime. Moreover, the CAP pledged that "no person –
regardless of ethnicity, gender, geography, disability, race or other
status – is denied universal human rights and basic economic
opportunities".
Least Developed Country conferences
The UN Least Developed Country
(LDC) conferences were a series of summits organized by the UN to
promote the substantial and even development of the world's least
developed countries.
1st UN LDC Conference
Held between September 1 and September 14, 1981, in Paris, the
first UN LDC Conference was organized to finalize the UN's "Substantial
New Programme of Action" for the 1980s in Least Developed Countries.
This program, which was unanimously adopted by the conference attendees,
argued for internal reforms in LDCs (meant to encourage economic
growth) to be complemented by strong international measures. However,
despite the major economic and policy reforms initiated many of these
LDCs, in addition to strong international aid, the economic situation of
these countries worsened as a whole in the 1980s. This prompted the
organization of a 2nd UN LDC conference almost a decade later.
2nd UN LDC Conference
Held between September 3 and September 14, 1990, once again in
Paris, the second UN LDC Conference was convened to measure the progress
made by the LDCs towards fulfilling their development goals during the
1980s. Recognizing the problems that plagued the LDCs over the past
decade, the conference formulated a new set of national and
international policies to accelerate the growth rates of the poorest
nations. These new principles were embodied in the "Paris Declaration
and Programme of Action for the Least Developed Countries for the
1990s".
4th UN LDC Conference
The most recent conference, held in May 2011 in Istanbul,
recognized that the nature of development had fundamentally changed
since the 1st conference held almost 30 years earlier. In the 21st
century, the capital flow into emerging economies has increasingly
become dominated by foreign direct investment and remittances, as
opposed to bilateral and multilateral assistance. Moreover, since the
80s, significant structural changes have taken place on the
international stage. With the creation of the G-20 conference of the
largest economic powers, including many nations in the Global South,
formerly undeveloped nations are now able to have a much larger say in
international relations. Furthermore, the conference recognized that in
the midst of a deep global recession, coupled with multiple crises
(energy, climate, food, etc.), the international community would have
fewer resources to aid the LDCs. Thus, the UN considered the
participation of a wide range of stakeholders (not least the LDCs
themselves), crucial to the formulation of the conference.
Organizations working to end extreme poverty
International organizations
World Bank
In 2013, the Board of Governors of the World Bank Group
(WBG) set two overriding goals for the WBG to commit itself to in the
future. First, to end extreme poverty by 2030, an objective that echoes
the sentiments of the UN and the Obama administration. Additionally, the
WBG set an interim target of reducing extreme poverty to below 9
percent by 2020. Second, to focus on growth among the bottom 40 percent
of people, as opposed to standard GDP growth. This commitment ensures
that the growth of the developing world lifts people out of poverty,
rather than exacerbating inequality.
As the World Bank's primary focus is on delivering economic
growth to enable equitable prosperity, its developments programs are
primarily commercial-based in nature, as opposed to the UN. Since the
World Bank recognizes better jobs will result in higher income and thus,
less poverty, the WBG seeks to support employment training initiatives,
small business development programs and strong labor protection laws.
However, since much of the growth in the developing world has been
inequitable, the World Bank has also begun teaming with client states to
map out trends in inequality and to propose public policy changes that
can level the playing field.
Moreover, the World Bank engages in a variety of nutritional,
transfer payments and transport-based initiatives. Children who
experience under-nutrition from conception to two years of age have a
much higher risk of physical and mental disability. Thus, they are often
trapped in poverty and are unable to make a full contribution to the
social and economic development of their communities as adults. The WBG
estimates that as much as 3% of GDP can be lost as a result of
under-nutrition among the poorest nations. To combat undernutrition, the
WBG has partnered with UNICEF and the WHO to ensure all small children
are fully fed. The WBG also offers conditional cash transfers to poor
households who meet certain requirements such as maintaining children's
healthcare or ensuring school attendance. Finally, the WBG understands
investment in public transportation and better roads is key to breaking
rural isolation, improving access to healthcare and providing better job
opportunities for the World's poor.
United Nations
1. OCHA (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs): The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
of the United Nations works to synchronize the disparate international,
national and non-governmental efforts to contest poverty. The OCHA
seeks to prevent "confusion" in relief operations and to ensure that the
humanitarian response to disaster situations has greater accountability
and predictability. To do so, OCHA has begun deploying Humanitarian
Coordinators and Country Teams to provide a solid architecture for the
international community to work through.
2. UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund): The United Nation's Children's Fund (UNICEF)
was created by the UN to provide food, clothing and healthcare to
European children facing famine and disease in the immediate aftermath
of World War II. After the UN General Assembly extended UNICEF's mandate
indefinitely in 1953, it actively worked to help children in extreme
poverty in more than 190 countries and territories to overcome the
obstacles that poverty, violence, disease and discrimination place in a
child's path. Its current focus areas are 1) Child survival &
development 2) Basic education & gender equality 3) Children and
HIV/AIDS and 4) Child protection.
3. UNHCR (The UN Refugee Agency): The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR)
is mandated to lead and coordinate international action to protect
refugees worldwide. Its primary purpose is to safeguard the rights of
refugees by ensuring anyone can exercise the right to seek asylum in
another state, with the option to return home voluntarily, integrate
locally or resettle in a third country. The UNHCR operates in over 125
countries, helping approximately 33.9 million persons.
4. WFP (World Food Program): The World Food Program (WFP)
is the largest agency dedicated to fighting hunger worldwide. On
average, WFP brings food assistance to more than 90 million people in 75
countries. The WFP not only strives to prevent hunger in the present,
but also in the future by developing stronger communities which will
make food even more secure on their own. The WFP has a range of
expertise from Food Security Analysis, Nutrition, Food Procurement and
Logistics.
5. WHO (World Health Organization): The World Health Organization (WHO)
is responsible for providing leadership on global health matters,
shaping the health research agenda, articulating evidence-based policy
decisions and combating diseases that are induced from poverty, such as
HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. Moreover, the WHO deals with
pressing issues ranging from managing water safety, to dealing with
maternal and newborn health.[43]
Bilateral organizations
USAID
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
is the lead U.S. government agency dedicated to ending extreme poverty.
Currently the largest bilateral donor in the world, the United States
channels the majority of its development assistance through USAID and
the U.S. Department of State. In President Obama's 2013 State of the Union
address, he declared "So the United States will join with our allies to
eradicate such extreme poverty in the next two decades...which is
within our reach." In response to Obama's call to action, USAID has made
ending extreme poverty central to its mission statement.
Under its New Model of Development, USAID seeks to eradicate extreme
poverty through the use of innovation in science and technology, by
putting a greater emphasis on evidence based decision-making, and
through leveraging the ingenuity of the private sector and global
citizens.
A major initiative of the Obama Administration is Power Africa,
which aims to bring energy to 20 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa.
By reaching out to its international partners, whether commercial or
public, the US has leveraged over $14 billion in outside commitments
after investing only US$7 billion of its own. To ensure that Power
Africa reaches the region's poorest, the initiative engages in a
transaction based approach to create systematic change. This includes
expanding access to electricity to more than 20,000 additional
households which already live without power.
In terms of specific programming, USAID works in a variety of
fields from preventing hunger, reducing HIV/AIDS, providing general
health assistance and democracy assistance, as well as dealing with
gender issues. To deal with food security, which affects roughly 842 million people (who go to bed hungry each night), USAID coordinates the Feed the Future Initiative (FtF). FtF aims to reduce poverty and undernutrition each by 20 percent over five years. Thanks to the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief
(PEPFAR) and a variety of congruent actors, the incidence of AIDS and
HIV, which used to ravage Africa, has reduced in scope and intensity.
Through PEPFAR, the United States has ensured over five million people
have received life-saving antiviral drugs, a significant proportion of
the eight million people receiving treatment in relatively poor nations.
In terms of general health assistance, USAID has worked to reduce
maternal mortality by 30 percent, under-five child mortality by 35
percent, and has accomplished a host of other goals.
USAID also supports the gamut of democratic initiatives, from promoting
human rights and accountable, fair governance, to supporting free and
fair elections and the rule of law. In pursuit of these goals, USAID has
increased global political participation by training more than 9,800
domestic election observers and providing civic education to more than
6.5 million people.
Since 2012, the Agency has begun integrating critical gender
perspectives across all aspects of its programming to ensure all USAID
initiatives work to eliminate gender disparities. To do so, USAID seeks
to increase the capability of women and girls to realize their rights
and determine their own life outcomes. Moreover, USAID supports
additional programs to improve women's access to capital and markets,
builds theirs skills in agriculture, and supports women's desire to own
businesses.
DfID
The Department for International Development
(DfID) is the UK's lead agency for eradicating extreme poverty. To do
so, DfID focuses on the creation of jobs, empowering women, and rapidly
responding to humanitarian emergencies.
Some specific examples of DfID projects include governance
assistance, educational initiatives, and funding cutting-edge research.
In 2014 alone, DfID will help to ensure free and fair elections in 13
countries. DfID will also help provide 10 million women with access to
justice through strengthened judicial systems and will help 40 million
people make their authorities more accountable. By 2015, DfID will have
helped 9 million children attend primary school, at least half of which
will be girls.
Furthermore, through the Research4Development (R4D) project, DfID has
funded over 35,000 projects in the name of creating new technologies to
help the world's poorest. These technologies include: vaccines for
diseases of African cattle, better diagnostic methods for tuberculosis,
new drugs for combating malaria, and developing flood-resistant rice. In
addition to technological research, the R4D is also used to fund
projects that seek to understand what, specifically, about governance
structures can be changed to help the world's poorest.
Non-governmental organizations
A
multitude of non-governmental organizations operate in the field of
extreme poverty, actively working to alleviate the poorest of the poor
of their deprivation. To name but a few notable organizations: Save the Children, The Overseas Development Institute, Concern Worldwide, ONE, trickleUP and Oxfam have all done a considerable amount of work in extreme poverty.
Save the Children is the leading international organization
dedicated to helping the world's indigent children. In 2013, Save the
Children reached over 143 million children through their work, including
over 52 million children directly. Save the Children also recently released their own report titled "Getting to Zero", in which they argued the international community could feasibly do more than lift the world's poor above $1.25/day. The Overseas Development Institute
(ODI) is the premier UK based think tank on international development
and humanitarian issues. ODI is dedicated to alleviating the suffering
of the world's poor by providing high-quality research and practical
policy advice to the World's development officials. ODI also recently released a paper entitled, "The Chronic Poverty Report 2014–2015: The road to zero extreme poverty",
in which its authors assert that though the international communities'
goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030 is laudable, much more targeted
resources will be necessary to reach said target. The report states that
"To eradicate extreme poverty, massive global investment is required in
social assistance, education and pro-poorest economic growth".
Concern Worldwide is an international humanitarian organization
whose mission is to end extreme poverty by influencing decision makers
at all levels of government (local to international).
Concern has also produced a report on extreme poverty in which they
explain their own conception of extreme poverty from a NGO's standpoint.
In this paper, named "How Concern Understands Extreme Poverty]",
the report's creators write that extreme poverty entails more than just
living under $1.25/day, it also includes having a small number of
assets and being vulnerable to severe negative shocks (whether natural
or man made).
ONE, the organization cofounded by Bono,
is a non-profit organization funded almost entirely by foundations,
individual philanthropists and corporations. ONE's goals include raising
public awareness and working with political leaders to fight
preventable diseases, increase government accountability and increase
investment in nutrition.
Finally, trickleUp is a microenterprise development program targeted at
those living on under $1.25/day, which provides the indigent with
resources to build a sustainable livelihood through both direct
financing and considerable training efforts.
Another NGO that works to end extreme poverty is Oxfam. This
non-governmental organization works prominently in Africa; their mission
is to improve local community organizations and it works to reduce
impediments to the development of the country. Oxfam helps families
suffering from poverty receive food and healthcare to survive. There are
many children in Africa experiencing growth stunting, and this is one
example of an issue that Oxfam targets and aims to resolve.
