Poverty: Dimensions and Prospects

Poverty reduction, as an overarching objective of development, has recently been adopted as an international development goal (IDG). Using the proportion of people living on less than one dollar a day per person as the measure of poverty, the international community identified the reduction of poverty by half by the year 2015 as an international development goal. The one-dollar a day per person is known as the international poverty line and the proportion of people living below this line is known as the head-count ratio. The head-count ratio measures the incidence or the spread of poverty. In 1998, available information shows that the incidence of poverty varies from a low of 5% of the population living below a one dollar a day per person in East Europe and Central Asia to a high of 46% of total population in sub-Saharan Africa.