The banning of extreme poverty and hunger.

The percentage of people living in extreme poverty has to be halved in 2015 to the proportion of people living in extreme poverty in 1990. Extreme poverty is defined as someone having less then $1.25 to spend per day. In 1990, 1.8 billion people were living in extreme poverty, which was nearly 42% of the global population. Less poverty can only be achieved by ensuring acceptable work for more people. Acceptable work means productive work which is carried out of free will under safe and equal circumstances. Especially in developing countries, people carry out underpaid work in unsafe circumstances. This is especially the case for women and children.
In 2015 would also need to see the halvation of people suffering from hunger. In 1990, one third of all children under 5 in the world were underfed.

The current situation:

Less poverty

The number of people living in extreme poverty has gone from 1.8 billion in 1990 to 1.4 billion people in 2005. If this trend continous, the goal of halving the number of people in extreme poverty in 2015 is achievable. The progress however, is not balanced around the globe. In East-Asia, there was a great improvement with the people living in extreme poverty going from 56 percent to 18 percent. In other regions such as Sub-Sahara Africa and South-Asia, the percentage of people living in poverty reduced however, due to the large growth in population, the absolute number of people living in poverty increased. If this trend continous, in 2015, there will still be 1 billion people living in extreme poverty, regardless of the relatively strong reduction in poverty.

Acceptable work

In 2007, 77 percent of the men and 49 percent of the women in developing countries had paid work. The percentage of workers that earn less then $1.25 has been reduced from 30 to 20 percent in 2007. The largest reduction was achieved in Asia. The most important reason for this is the increase of productivity through which as a result the wages have risen. In Sub-Sahara Africa there has hardly been an increase in productivity with as a result this group of the ‘working poor’ has hardly decreased. The percentage of workers in temporary or unsafe jobs has hardly decreased, still 50 percent of workers and especially affecting women in developing countries.

Less Hunger

Between 1990 and 2006 there has been a mediocre improvement in the fight against hunger. The percentage of underfed children was reduced from 33 to 26 percent. China was most successful in achieving this and in Sub-Sahara Africa the progress in slowest. In Africa as well as Asia the number of underfed children is much higher outside of the large cities. According to the current trend, the goal will not be achieved by 2015. The global increase in food prices adds further pressure to the progress towards this goal. The poor have been hit hardest by the increase in food prices. Also, the current global recession has a negative influence on the progress of working towards this goal.