In December 2012, Nextbigfuture proposed bringing world extreme poverty below 3% by 2025.
Yesterday (April 2, 2013) World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim outlined a bold agenda for the global community toward ending extreme poverty by 2030 and promoting shared prosperity to boost the incomes of the poorest 40 percent of the population in each country.
The World Bank President outlined a plan to reduce extreme poverty to less than 3% of the world’s population by 2030. This is pretty much the same poverty target suggested by Nextbigfuture.
You are welcome World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim.
Brookings Institute analysis of poverty has better numbers than the World Bank. Brookings institute indicated the 2015 the extreme poverty should be down to 10% or less of the world’s population. Down from 47 per cent in 1990 and 24 percent in 2008. It seems that a goal of getting extreme poverty down below 5% is easily possible for 2025. This would leave about 350 million people living with less than $1.25/day mainly in Africa. Nigeria is actually doing pretty well economically and is expected to account for 90-100 million of the extremely poor in 2015. If Nigeria continues to do well then they could make a lot of progress against poverty by 2020. A reachable positive scenario is to have less than 200 million living with less than $1.25/day. An extreme poverty rate of 2.5%.
The World Bank should adopt my other suggested targets.
Continue progress on Child survival
The number of under-five deaths worldwide fell from more than 12.0 million in 1990 to 7.6 million in 2010. The goal should be to bring under five deaths worldwide below 1 million by 2025.
Illiteracy a big problem for rapid progress against $2/day poverty – Near Poverty Target
It is also conceivable to have less than 1 billion living on less than $2/day in 2020 (near poverty target). However, this is a tougher area to make a lot of progress. The reason being is that there are high levels of illiteracy in India and Africa. Someone who is 15 or over now and is illiterate will be 25 or older in 2020 and will be illiterate. India likely has 30-40% illiteracy. Some who are considered literate only have to be able to write their name. This is not true literacy.
Bring the global middle class at $10/day PPP could double from 2 billion to 4 billion by 2025
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Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.