Poverty: Standards

(asked on 28th August 2020) - View Source

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the $1.90 level of the World Bank's international poverty line in accurately measuring and identifying trends in global poverty; and if he will make a statement.


Answered by
James Duddridge Portrait
James Duddridge
This question was answered on 8th September 2020

Officials at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office are actively involved in discussions about how best to define and measure global poverty, working with officials in developing countries, academia and international organisations, such as the World Bank and UN.

The international poverty line of $1.90 per capita per day continues to be the benchmark for monitoring extreme poverty at a global level. Set by the World Bank to reflect how the world's poorest countries define poverty, it provides a measure of absolute deprivation which allows us to compare levels of need between countries; track progress - or setbacks - over time; and focus resources and efforts where they are most needed. By this measure, 10 per cent of the world's population - around 734 million people - lived in extreme poverty in 2015. While still far too many, this represents remarkable progress from 1990, when 36 per cent of the world - around 1.9 billion people - lived below $1.90.

As with any definition of poverty, the $1.90 poverty line has limitations, which are well recognised, including by the World Bank.

Following the recommendations of the 2016 Atkinson Commission and others, there is a global consensus that we need a range of complementary poverty measures to provide a rounded picture and meet differing policy needs. FCDO-funded investments in data collection and research supports this agenda. However, the $1.90 measure remains essential to monitoring poverty, allowing us to understand and improve the degree to which growth and economic and social policies affect the poorest. For this reason, it is the measure used in the first of the UN Sustainable Development Goals - 'by 2030, eradicate extreme poverty' - and a key consideration in how donors allocate aid on the basis of need.

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