An article in the Economist last week profiled the progress that has been made on the Millennium Development Goals since 1990. The chart below shows selected targets and global progress:
Credit: The Economist
I was interested (though not surprised) to learn that China and India are responsible for the bulk of the progress that has been made. The article states:
Take the goal of halving the poverty rate from its 1990 level by 2015. The World Bank reckons that in 1990 46% of the developing world’s population fell below the internationally accepted poverty line of $1.25 a day at purchasing-power parity. By 2005 the rate had fallen to 27% and, despite a slowdown in progress in the past couple of years, it is now probably lower still. A global halving by 2015 seems well within reach. Yet this “victory” is mainly due to a drop in China’s poverty rate from 60% in 1990 to 16% in 2005. Because China and India accounted for over 62% of the planet’s poor in 1990, changes to the world’s poverty rate depend heavily on their performance. A global goal is therefore a poor way to give the governments of smaller countries an incentive to tackle poverty.