Percentage of people in extreme poverty to fall below 10 percent

The percentage of people living in extreme poverty is likely to fall for the first time below 10 percent of the world's population in 2015, the World Bank said on Sunday as it revised its benchmark for measuring the problem.

Extreme poverty has long been defined as living on or below $1.25 a day, but the World Bank's adjustment now sets the poverty line at $1.90 a day.

The bank said the change reflects new data on differences in the cost of living across countries while preserving the real purchasing power of the previous yardstick.

Using the new benchmark, the bank projects that 702 million people, or 9.6 percent of the world's population, will be living in extreme poverty in 2015, down from 902 million people, or 12.8 percent, in 2012.

The bank attributed the continued fall in poverty to strong economic growth rates in emerging markets, particularly India, and investments in education, health and social safety nets.

"These projections show us that we are the first generation in human history that can end extreme poverty,” World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said in a statement.

However, he warned that slower global growth, volatile financial markets, conflicts, high youth unemployment and the impact of climate change were obstacles to meeting a U.N. target to end poverty by 2030 — part of a new set of development goals adopted by 193 countries at the United Nations last month.

According to the bank, about half those living in extreme poverty in 2020 will hail from hard-to-reach fragile and conflict-affected states. 

Releasing the figures, the World Bank said "major hurdles remain" in the goal to end poverty by 2030, adding, "The growing concentration of global poverty in sub-Saharan Africa is of great concern."

"While some African countries have seen significant successes in reducing poverty, the region as a whole lags the rest of the world in the pace of lessening poverty."

The report singled out Madagascar and the Democratic Republic of Congo as particularly worrisome examples of deprivation in Africa. It also cautioned that reliable current data was not available in parts of the Middle East and North Africa because of conflict.

The World Bank introduced a global poverty line in 1990, setting it at $1 a day. It was adjusted in 2008 to $1.25 a day.

Around the world, the number of people living in extreme poverty has dropped by more than half since 1990, when 1.9 billion people lived under $1.25 a day, compared with 836 million in 2015, according to the United Nations.

Wire services