The World Bank said that for the first time, the number of people living in extreme poverty has fallen to fewer than 1 in 10. CCTV’s Jessica Stone has Insight.

The World Bank says some 200 million are still living below the poverty line. Many are still living in rural or border areas, where the Chinese government has been investing in infrastructure, healthcare and education.

The decline of extreme poverty
Extreme poverty – defined by the World Bank as living under $1.90 a day – has declined substantially since 1990.

The Bank estimates 702 million people will be living in extreme poverty in 2015 (9.6 percent of the world’s population), down from 902 million in 2012 and 1.96 billion in 1990.

The region with the most dramatic change in poverty rates was East Asia and Pacific, which dropped more than 93 percent from 60.8 percent of its population in poverty in 1990 to just 4.1 percent in 2015.

Europe and Central Asia have mostly stayed consistently in the low single-digit percentages. Sub Saharan Africa dropped by a little more than a third, from 56 percent in 1990 to 35.2 percent in 2015.

In 1990, more than half the world’s extremely poor lived in East Asia and the Pacific region, and 14.5 percent were in Sub Saharan Africa.

But today that’s switched: half the world’s poor live in Sub Saharan African countries, while 11.7 percent are in East Asia and Pacific countries.

Francisco Ferreira on the decline of extreme poverty rates
CCTV America’s Mike Walter spoke to Francisco Ferreira who studies poverty at The World Bank. He says one region in particular is leading the way.

Global extreme poverty forecasted to drop below 10 percent for first time, ever

Less than 10 percent of the world’s population lives in extreme poverty, new data from the World Bank shows. This marks the lowest that rate has ever been.