AsiaTimes - World Bank fumbles data on poor countries

World Bank fumbles data on poor countries - Although Robert Zoellick pushed the World Bank to open its much-prized treasure chest of data to the public during his 5-year term as president, he did little to reform how the bank works with that data. Whoever becomes the next president of the World Bank should make it a priority to reevaluate the country classification system. Doing so would have a wide & beneficial impact on the development community.  By Seth Kaplan

World Bank says `Extreme Poverty' Has Been `Halved'

(PHOTO: Anti-poverty activists/Tangient)A new report by the World Bank released Wednesday says that `Developing countries, as a group, appear to have already met UN Millennium Development Goal #1 (by 2010) to halve extreme poverty in the world's poorest countries by 2015'. The WB reckons appx. 1.29 billion people lived on less than $1.25 a day in developing countries in 2008, down from 1.94 billion in 1981. The reason? Mainly China's economic boom, which has helped to lift many of its people out of poverty the report said. The MDG's are a set of targets adopted by world leaders at the UN in 2000 to fight poverty, hunger & disease worldwide.

(MAP: 2008, people living on $2-day. Dark orange worst/WBG)Excluding China, however, the number of people in the developing world living in extreme poverty was about the same in 2008 as in 1981 - around 1.1 billion; & a further breakdown by region, shows that only E. Europe, the M. East, E. Asia & the Pacific - which includes India & China - achieved the poverty goal. Africa & Latin America are not there yet, the WB said. This element corroborates what the World Food Programme said about Africa last summer - `some regions of Africa notably the Horn, are falling deeper into poverty'  & even the WB admits that estimates for 2015 projects there will still be about 1 billion people living in extreme poverty - internationally defined as those living on less than $1.25 a day. (Read More atNew Business Ethiopia)