(Some) Progress Toward Achieving Millennium Development Goals

Seven years ago, the international community declared a goal of halving the proportion of people living in extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.  While some progress has been made, it appears that those most in need are being left behind.  The International Food Policy Research Institute has just issued a report, The World's Most Deprived: Characteristics and Causes of Extreme Poverty and Hunger.  The report (available here) is sobering.  Of the one billion people in the world living on less than $1/day, 162 million live in "ultrapoverty", that is, less than 50 cents/day.  Those ultra-poor are "overwhelmingly" concentrated in Sub-Sahara Africa.  While substantial progress has been made in attaining the Millennium Development Goals in some areas (e.g., in East Asia and the Pacific), there has been an increase in the number of people living in all categories of poverty, particularly ultrapoverty, in the Sub-Sahara.  If current trends continue, improvements "will largely exclude a large share of the world's absolute poorest."  The report discusses the characteristics of the poorest, some of the reasons for the dismally slow progress in reducing ultrapoverty, and makes recommendations as to interventions necessary to move the poorest out of poverty.

There are no easy answers here, but the Millennium Development Goals are worthy ones.  The IFPRI report is important in reminding us that "[a]s the world moves toward achieving the Millennium Development Goal of cutting hunger and poverty in half, it cannot be content to focus only on the marginally poor and hungry - the desperate, grinding poverty of the world's absolute poorest must also be assuaged."