400 million children live in extreme poverty – W’Bank

About 400 million children live in extreme poverty worldwide despite a sharp decline over the past three decades, according a new World Bank analysis released on Thursday in Washington DC, United States.

The report, for the first time, gives an in-depth profile of the poorest people in the world.

The report found that 721 million fewer people lived in extreme poverty in 2010, or under $1.25 a day, compared to 1981, but also concluded that a disproportionate number of children were among them.

Children accounted for one in three of those living in extreme poverty around the world in 2010, compared with only one in five of those living above the poverty line.

In low-income countries, the percentages were even worse, with half of all children living in extreme poverty.

The World Bank Group President, Jim Kim, said, “We have witnessed an historic movement of people lifting themselves out of poverty over the past three decades, but the number of children living in poverty alone should leave no doubt that there remains much work to do.

“We can reach our goals of ending poverty and boosting shared prosperity, including sharing that prosperity with future generations, but only if we work together with new urgency. Children should not be cruelly condemned to a life without hope, without good education, and without access to quality health care. We must do better for them.”

Punch