Poverty in MENA : Advances and Challenges
On February 29, 2012, the World Bank released an updated dataset of internationally comparable poverty estimates. Poverty is assessed against two internationally comparable poverty lines: $1.25 and $2 a day per capita (measured using 2005 purchasin...
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| Language: | English |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2012
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2012/04/16251111/poverty-mena-advances-challenges http://hdl.handle.net/10986/10841 |
| Summary: | On February 29, 2012, the World Bank
released an updated dataset of internationally comparable
poverty estimates. Poverty is assessed against two
internationally comparable poverty lines: $1.25 and $2 a day
per capita (measured using 2005 purchasing power parity
exchange rates). The new global estimates indicate a
significant reduction in the proportion of world population
below the $1.25 per day per capita poverty line, from 43.1
percent to 22.4 percent between 1990 and 2008. On the other
hand, the reduction in the number of poor people is less
impressive, mainly on account of population growth during
this period. As a result, the number of the poor in 2008 was
still as high as 1.29 billion people, although it fell from
1.9 billion in 1990. Accuracy of estimates in the Middle
East and North Africa (MENA) region will improve if data is
collected more regularly by individual countries as well as
shared more rapidly. On an encouraging note, in the recently
released 2008 poverty numbers, three MENA countries and
territories are included for the first time (namely, Iraq,
Syria, and the West Bank and Gaza). |
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