The Global Bottom 10%

There are between 824 million and 1.1 billion people living in extreme poverty now (less than $1.25 per day in 2005 PPP GDP which is $1 per day in 1996 PPP GDP).

About 80% of the extremely poor are in China, India and Sub-Saharan Africa. China has mostly risen out of poverty. India has most of its poor just below the $1.25 per day cutoff and most of them should escape poverty over the next ten years. Africa has half of its extremely poor living on less than 0.70 dollars per day. Africa has about half of the extremely poor now.

If trends were to continue 300 million people in Africa will stay in extreme poverty.

Agriculture key to breaking extreme poverty

Growing academic evidence highlights agriculture’s unique role in helping to reduce extreme poverty. For example, an important 2011 paper by economists Luc Christiaensen, Lionel Demery and Jesper Kuhl shows that agriculture is roughly three times more effective at reducing extreme poverty than non-agricultural sectors.

Grow Africa is a partnership platform that seeks to accelerate investments and transformative change in African agriculture based on national agricultural priorities.

Complementary investments in transport infrastructure, irrigation, farmer credit and input support systems (e.g. for fertilizer and seeds) were essential to Asia’s 20th century green revolutions, which laid the foundation for that region’s subsequent economic breakthroughs. The same basic approach, updated for today’s social and environmental realities, can help to ensure that Africa’s long-term economic success is equally, if not more, robust.

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