WASHINGTON — The drive to overcome extreme poverty and hunger has been at the heart of global efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) since their adoption a decade ago. Up until the food, fuel and financial crises in the past two years, developing countries were making progress in overcoming poverty.
In 1981, 52 percent of people in developing countries lived in extreme poverty; by 2005, that share had fallen to 25 percent. Country efforts were paying off right up until the crises, with poverty falling sharply in East Asia, Latin America, and Eastern and Central Europe.
This progress has not been shared by all. Sub-Saharan Africa continues to lag in overcoming poverty. Hunger and malnutrition rates have been falling, but not fast enough to meet the goal of eradicating hunger by 2015. Too many of the world's people remain hungry, poor or vulnerable to poverty, with too few jobs and too little access to services and economic opportunity.