Poverty

"... 1.4 billion people are living in extreme poverty - more than one-quarter of the population of developing countries"

"... the number of people living on less than $2.00 a day (2005 PPP*) has remained nearly constant [from 1981 to 2005] at 2.5 billion."

From: Worldbank - Poverty data: A supplement to World Development Indicators 2008

The international poverty line for extreme poverty is $1.25 a day 2005 PPP and the 'median' poverty line is $2.00 a day 2005 PPP. What does this mean?

PPP stands for "Purchasing Power Parity"; $1.25 2005 PPP is the purchasing power of $1.25 in the U.S. in 2005. Therefore, the 1.4 billion people living in extreme poverty have less purchasing power than what you could by for $1,25 in the U.S. 2005.

This means that the actual income in terms of nominal exchange rates of these extremely poor people was actually much lower than $1.25 per day, because the purchasing power of a US dollar is much higher in developing countries than in the U.S. As every traveller knows, you can buy much more for one US dollar of one Euro in a developing country than in the US or Eruope itsefl.

Moreover, the poverty estimates not only include the money that people earn, but also what people produce for themselves. The total consumption of people is estimated through household surveys.

The international poverty line is an estimation of the absolute minimum that people need to live. About one out of every four people lives below this poverty line. Another 22% has a 2005 PPP income between $1.25 and $2.00 a day and are also considered to be very poor.

Hunger

"World hunger is increasing. FAO's most recent estimates put the number of hungry people at 923 million ... "

"High food prices share much of the blame. FAO estimates that between 2003-05 and 2007, 75 million more people were added to the total number of undernourished."

From: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations - The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2008

Child mortality

Every year 10 million children in developing countries die before the age of five. Undernourishment is responsible for 55 percent of all under five deaths.

"Undernutrition contributes to the deaths of about 5.6 million children under five in the developing world eacht year."

From: UNICEF - Progress for Children: A Report Card on Nutrition

Primary school completion

Millions of children don't have access to primary education or don't complete primary school.

"The number of children of primary school age who where out of school fell from 103 million in 1999 to 73 million in 2006 ..."

From: Global progress: Are we on track to meet the MDGs by 2015?

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Resources on poverty and hunger