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East Asia and the Pacific
About 14 per cent of its population lived below US$1.25 a day in 2008, down from 77 per cent in 1981, when it was the region with the highest poverty rate in the world. In China, 13 per cent, or 173 million people, lived below $1.25 a day in 2008. East Asia achieved MDG1 about ten years ago.
In the developing world outside China, the extreme-poverty rate was 25 per cent in 2008, down from 41 per cent in 1981. The number of people living in extreme poverty, however, was about the same in 2008 as 1981 at around 1.1 billion, after rising in the 1980s and 1990s and falling since 1999.
South Asia
The $1.25 a day poverty rate fell from 61 per cent to 39 per cent between 1981 and 2005 and fell a further three percentage points between 2005 and 2008. The proportion of the population living in extreme poverty is now the lowest since 1981.
Latin America and the Caribbean
From a peak of 14 per cent living below $1.25 a day in 1984, the poverty rate reached its low...
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