"Although there is development and increasing economic growth in the developing countries, we predict that about one billion people will still be living in extreme poverty," said Martin Ravallion, director of the World Bank Research Group, in a press release received by ANTARA in Jakarta on Monday.
He said the fact that about nearly 663 million people were still living under the poverty line in many countries indicated that the world had remained vulnerable to extreme poverty.
According to data released by the World Bank, the median poverty level of people who earn $1.25 US dollars per day was the average amount in ten among twenty of the poorest countries in the world.
Meanwhile, in developing countries, the median poverty level wes $2 US dollars per day whereas the poverty level decreased slightly from 2.59 million people in 1981 to 2.47 million million people in 2008.
On the other hand, the Director of Poverty Reduction Group of the World Bank, Jaime Saavedra, said 20 percent of citizens in developing countries still earned under 1.25 US dollars per day, and 40 percent under 2 US dollars per day.
"We should make efforts to decrease the poverty level through the regulations and programmes in all sectors, like creating more and better job opportunities, providing affordable health services and basic infrastructure, and protecting the vulnerable people," Saavedra he said.
Saavedra added that in the measuring side, all countries should develop their methods of collecting data and have the capacity to build statistics which were especially needed in low-income countries.
The World Bank`s methods to measure the poverty level were based on consumption and income levels that coordinated with inflation levels and the difference of in purchasing powers of the people in many different countries as the sample.
In the East Asian and Pacific regions, 14 percent of the populations was still living on less than $1.25 US dollars per day in 2008 or a decrease of 77 percent since 1981 when these areas were at the highest poverty level in the world.(*)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2012
