LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Almost 90 percent of people incorrectly believe that extreme poverty has become worse or not changed in the past 25 years, said a study published on Thursday, voicing concerns that public pessimism threatens to stall efforts to end poverty. In a survey of some 26,000 people across 24 countries, 87 percent of respondents said they believed extreme poverty had not improved over the past two decades - while only one percent knew poverty rates had halved. Since 1990 more than one billion people have been taken out of extreme poverty - defined as living on a daily income of less than $1.25 - with the proportion living in poverty in developing regions falling to 14 percent in 2015 from almost half. The study comes a year after world leaders agreed on an ambitious new set of global goals designed to improve lives in all countries by 2030. For example, 50 percent of Chinese respondents correctly said extreme poverty had been cut in half, compared with just eight percent of Germans and Americans.

Source: The Star September 22, 2016 00:00 UTC