The bad news has a way prettier graph associated with it, but I'm going to give you the good news first, because it's the end of the year, and....

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You get the good news first, and it's REALLY good

Extreme poverty is at its lowest level in recorded history. Yes, that's right. Especially those of us living in South Africa may be faced by glaring inequality every single day of our lives, and be overwhelmed about how it can be fixed...but globally, it's being fixed.

Since 1990, the proportion of people in the world living in extreme poverty - currently defined as living on US$1.90 per day or less (and I remember when that number was $1) has dropped dramatically from one third to less than a tenth. According to the World Bank, around half of the world's country's have reduced that extreme poverty to less than 3 percent.

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Before we get too excited, now for the bad news

And the colourful graph I promised you.

Where is that residual extreme poverty still persisting, and where do we expect most of those who'll be trapped in the same hamster wheel of extreme poverty by 2030 to live? Drum roll....

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No prizes for guessing the yellow bit is Sub-Saharan Africa. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest there might be a correlation between good governance, unlocking the local private sector, inviting the international private sector in then not messing them about by making sure that the investment environment is transparent and predictable, and, well, making the yellow bit skinnier. Then Sub-Saharan Africa might be able to replicate what most of those East Asian and Pacific countries have done already, and what it looks like South Asian countries are on track for doing by 2030.

Hey, I did say the graph was colourful. So in that sense, I saved the pretty news for last.

Reference

World Bank - Year in Review: 2018 in 14 Charts

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