The World Bank’s recent release of its updated poverty numbers for 2015 reveal 736 million – or 10% – of the world’s people live in extreme poverty, down from 11% in 2013. The reduction is of course cause for celebration, though the rate of poverty reduction has slowed, suggesting that it will be challenging to eradicate it entirely by 2030. Yet for households that escape poverty but subsequently fall back into poverty, fall into poverty for the first time, or even remain in chronic poverty, these figures mask a sombre reality. New research by the Chronic Poverty Advisory Network indicates that sustaining an escape from poverty doesn’t happen for most of the global poor. Instead, in eight countries in Africa and Asia, ‘poverty mobility’ was the norm. |
