The world is on track to meet the poverty reduction target set by Millennium Development Goal 1, the U.N. and World Bank said in separate reports. But progress toward reducing the number of extremely poor people is hampered by the effects of the recent economic crisis, the IMF chief has noted.
More success in poverty reduction would have been possible if it were not for the recent jump in fuel and food prices because of the economic crisis, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said at the opening session of the U.N. high-level summit in New York.
The number of desperately poor is likely to shrink to 15 percent of the world population by 2015, less than half of the baseline 42 percent of the population in 1990, the U.N. report states according to The Washington Post. The newspaper adds that the World Bank said halving the percentage of people living in extreme poverty by 2015 is “well within reach.”
“The momentum has been derailed” toward greater reduction of the number of extremely poor people, Strauss-Kahn said according to the Post.
“Progress on slashing poverty is not as impressive when translated to absolute terms,” the Post adds.
“The absolute number of poor will shrink less than the percentage figure, because of population growth,” the newspaper explains.
It further notes that several of the other MDGs are not likely to be met, including the ones on reducing child and maternal mortality around the world.
Devex News – live breaking news coverage of the Millennium Development Goals and the Sept. 20-22 U.N. MDG summit in New York.
