I had to deliver this last week a 10 minute informative presentation on this topic, for my “States and Markets” class. I’m sharing some thoughts with you here and would be really curious to see what non-economists/ non-policy students think about the proposed solutions. Since I am surrounded by such folks, though, views from the community are also welcome 
The figures
- there’s great news: the proportion of people living in extreme economic poverty, i.e. on less than $1.25/ day (at 2005 prices, adjusted for purchasing power parity) had dropped worldwide from 52% in 1981 to 26% in 2005
- the bad news: there are great regional disparities – China and East Asia in general, which used to be the poorest in the 80s (80% of the population affected by extreme poverty) have reduced their percentage of poor drastically (18% in 2005); however, sub-Saharan African has kept its poverty rate unchanged in the last 40 years, at about 50% of its population. Moreover, because of population increase, in absolute numbers the number of the poor has doubled (from 200 million in 1981 to 380 million in 2005) Continue reading ‘Ending Poverty. What Approach Works Best.’