World Bank Projects Global Extreme Poverty To Fall Below 10 Percent Of The World’s Population In 2015

World Bank forecasted less than 10 percent of the world's population will suffer from extreme poverty this year. The organization also revealed that about 200 million of the population has moved up of the global extreme poverty line since 2012.

"This is the best story in the world today -- these projections show us that we are the first generation in human history that can end extreme poverty," World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said in a dispatch, as noted by International Business Times Oct. 3.

"This new forecast of poverty falling into the single digits should give us new momentum and help us focus even more clearly on the most effective strategies to end extreme poverty."

According to the latest projections of World Bank, some 702 million people or 9.6 percent of the world's population will suffer from extreme poverty in the current year.

Al Jazeera reported on Oct. 4 that about 13 percent of the world's population stood below the poverty line in 2012, while 29 percent of the population in 1999 suffer from extreme poverty.

Kim said the decline in global extreme poverty is "due to strong growth rates in developing countries in recent years, investments in people's education, health, and social safety nets that helped keep people from falling back into poverty."

"It will be extraordinarily hard, especially in a period of slower global growth, volatile financial markets, conflicts, high youth unemployment, and the growing impact of climate change. But it remains within our grasp, as long as our high aspirations are matched by country-led plans that help the still millions of people living in extreme poverty," he said.

He also added that the continuous decline in the global extreme poverty rate could be attributed to "broad-based growth that generates sufficient income-earning opportunities; investing in people's development prospects through improving the coverage and quality of  education, health, sanitation, and protecting the poor and vulnerable against sudden risks of unemployment, hunger, illness, drought and other calamities."

"With these strategies in place, the world stands a vastly better chance of ending extreme poverty by 2030 and raising the life prospects of low-income families," Kim said.