The New Nation - Internet Edition

BSS, Dhaka

Despite much progress in reducing poverty worldwide, a substantial number of the world's poorest people are being left behind, according to a new report by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) released recently.

About one billion people today live on less than a dollar a day, the report said.

The report titled "The World's Most Deprived Characteristics and Causes of Extreme Poverty and Hunger," found that 162 million of the world's poorest people, the ultra poor, survive on less than 50 cents a day.

Three categories of poverty in Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa are examined in the study: subjacent poor, living on between $0.75 and $1 a day, medial poor, living on between $0.50 and $0.75 a day, and ultra poor, those living on less than $0.50 a day.

If the poor concentrated in a single nation, they would comprise the world's seventh most populous country, said the report conducted by three senior research fellows of the IFRI, led by Akhter Ahmed.

The report however, said, South Asia, which accounts for 19.7 million, or 12 percent, of the world's poorest people achieved remarkable growth rates during the 1990s.

It said, poverty rates in Bangladesh in all three categories of poverty have fallen significantly since the end of the 1990s. The report, however said, the South Asia region was less able than East Asia and the Pacific to convert this growth to reductions in poverty.

The ultra poor benefited the least from progress in this region, and those people living in medial poverty benefited the most, it added. It said in India, the medial poor fared better than the subjacent poor and only marginally better than the ultra poor.

The report defined subjacent poverty as the proportion of the population living between $0.81 and below $1.08 a day, the medial poverty as between $0.54 and below $0.81 a day; and ultra poverty as below $0.54 a day.