₦airaland Forum

The World Bank is to make the most dramatic change to its global poverty line for 25 years — raising its measure by a half to about $1.90 per day — in a move likely to swell the statistical ranks of the world’s poor by tens of millions.



The move from $1.25 would be the biggest revision since the World Bank introduced its $1 a day yardstick of global poverty in 1990.

World leaders meet on Friday at the UN headquarters to commit to 17 new “sustainable development goals” meant to guide development policy for the next 15 years.

The first and most prominent is the eradication by 2030 of “extreme poverty everywhere” as defined by the World Bank’s $1.25 a day line.

The bank is expected to follow the event by shifting its poverty line to about $1.90 ahead of its annual meetings in Lima, Peru, in early October — a move likely to result in significant shifts in the estimated size and distribution of the planet’s poor.

It is difficult to predict exactly how many more people will be defined as poor. However, when researchers at the bank tested a notional poverty line of $1.92 earlier this year, it led to a surge of 148m.

Most of the difference came in east Asia where the ranks of those falling below the poverty line almost doubled from 157m at the old $1.25/day measure to 293m. In Latin America, the result was an increase of 8m, or more than 25 per cent, in the number of poor to 37m, while in south Asia the ranks of the poor grew by 7m to 407m. Under that line, sub-Saharan Africa remained steady at some 416m.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Jim Yong Kim, the World Bank president, said the decision to adjust the poverty line was a necessary update due to new data on purchasing power. The new line, he said, had been “very well vetted” by the bank’s poverty experts.

“We don’t think we moved the goalposts,” he said. “We think we simply updated the goalposts to 2015.”

The move follows more than a year of discussions within the bank following the release of new purchasing power parity (PPP) estimates, meant to facilitate a better comparison of the relative buying power of consumers around the world and the size of economies.

The shift is likely to renew a debate over the robustness of the World Bank’s poverty line. Earlier this year, it assigned a new commission, led by the British economist Sir Anthony Atkinson, to examine ways to measure poverty and how to update the existing poverty line.

Among its members is Angus Deaton, the Princeton economist and persistent critic of a poverty line that he argues has been misleading for years. “You’ve got a line that no one knows where to put it, PPPs that change, and underlying data that is bad,” he said. “It is sort of a statistical problem from hell.”

The World Bank’s administering of the poverty line also carried a hint of conflict of interest, he said, as the bank’s main task was fighting poverty, and its very existence depended on its own poverty measures.

Source:http://www.nairausd.com/2015/09/africas-poor-to-remain-unchanged-as.html?m=1

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Even $1 a day is hard, now moving it higher? They don't like us!

Unsad:
Even $1 a day is hard, now moving it higher? They don't like us!

Who are we to blame.

The world is progressing

Fp for everyone to see how our continent is behind

Its unfortunate! Our leaders don't care and don't even understand what poverty line means, to them popping champagne is what they know how to do. Daron Acemoglu and James A Robinson notes in thier compelling book " Why Nations Fail" Poor countries are poor because those who have power make choices that create poverty. They get it wrong not by mistake or ignorance but on purpose.
Nigeria of 2015 is getting closer to mass revolt the next 2years will prove me right or wrong if nothing critical is done to salvage the situation through major economic policies inclusive of massive wage and capital redistribution.

blame it on corruption....many of the so called african leaders have turned their country to their private business...

Benedict44:
blame it on corruption....many of the so called african leaders have turned their country to their private business...

True talk. Also blame on

Before africa can be a better continent, our leaders must learn to live for the subjects/masses and not for their personal interest

$1 of 1990 is different from that of today

You are not serious. Do something about Saraki first. That's how most of your money disappear. Stealing and corruption.

gnykelly:
$1 of 1990 is different from that of today

Explain

ifyan:
Explain

inflation has eaten the value of the money .i.e. the value of your savings or money you own last year e.g. #100 if inflation is at %10 the value will have drop to #90.9 this year. though you are still holding that #100 bill its purchasing value has reduced.

cumulative inflation rate over the period 1990 till 2015 should be factor in.

Benedict44:
blame it on corruption....many of the so called african leaders have turned their country to their private business...

It is not corruption but Neo colonialism, i.e. Nigeria a neo colonial state of Britain, that is my personal grouse with Buhari, Hausa fulani and Yoruba in general, their allegiance lies with the Europeans, Despite all the mistakes and downfall of GEJ , I liked him because he was little by little moving Nigeria away from the bondage of the Brits. Look at Okoroawusa who peddled lies that he has built or upgraded IMSU to world standards but his son graduated from university of Manchester, and nobody from Imo state said anything, those who dared to protest were quickly labeled losers and haters, just look at the student bodies and associations, exact copy of the systems of Nigeria.

cocoduck:
It is not corruption but Neo colonialism, i.e. Nigeria a neo colonial state of Britain, that is my personal grouse with Buhari, Hausa fulani and Yoruba in general, their allegiance lies with the Europeans, Despite all the mistakes and downfall of GEJ , I liked him because he was little by little moving Nigeria away from the bondage of the Brits. Look at Okoroawusa who peddled lies that he has built or upgraded IMSU to world standards but his son graduated from university of Manchester, and nobody from Imo state said anything, those who dared to protest were quickly labeled losers and haters, just look at the student bodies and associations, exact copy of the systems of Nigeria.

True yarn