The deadline for the elimination of extreme poverty around the world

Extreme poverty could be eradicated worldwide by 2050, experts say in their forecast. Higher growth should mean stable employment and wages, with the biggest improvements being seen in low- and middle-income countries.

The end of extreme poverty could be finally achieved by 2050, supported by economic growth in low-income countries, according to a new economic outlook.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic has begun to reverse progress in eradicating extreme poverty and further challenges are emerging, the damage could have a very limited impact on the overall economic growth trajectory, the Center for Global Development (CGD) said in a report.

“We know the world will look very different in 2050, and climate change is a huge concern going forward,” said Charles Kenny, CGD Senior Scientist and one of the report’s authors. “But we cannot let this overshadow the fact that continued economic growth should leave almost no one in the most desperate poverty that has been the lot of the vast majority of humanity for most of history, albeit decades after it could have been eradicated.” “.

According to Charles Kenny, inequality is likely to persist and poverty will still exist, but higher growth rates should mean that most people have stable employment and incomes, rather than relying on precarious informal work or subsistence farming. The expert added that by 2050, no country will be classified as a low-income country, which is currently defined as a GNI per capita of $1,085 or less.

Charles Kenny, author of Getting Better: Why Global Growth Is Succeeding, said he and Zach Gehan, who worked with him on the report, used historical data on income, demographics, education and temperature to predict the future shape of the global economy. .

Extreme poverty – living on less than $2.15 a day – is projected to fall below 2% globally by 2050, from around 8% in 2022. In Africa, where the rate is highest, it would drop from 29% to 7%.

By 2050, more than two-thirds of the world’s population could live on more than $10 a day, up from about 42% today.

The authors predicted much slower growth in high-income countries over the next two decades, with GDP per capita growing by only about 20% from 2019, while it would double in low- and middle-income countries.

Ratin Roy, managing director of ODI’s global think tank, formerly the Overseas Development Institute, said Kenny’s predictions are possible “if everyone does the right thing.”

“What you see in the last 100 years is that people have done wrong,” he said. “For most of my adult life, global poverty declined until three years ago and then started to increase due to many factors, including, not least, the Covid pandemic, but also other factors. And to achieve its re-reduction is very difficult.

Roy said it was important for countries to take care of those less fortunate. The fact that poverty still persists in countries like the UK and the US shows that more than just economic growth will be needed.

“Just reaching a high level of income is not enough. If that were the case, children would not go to school hungry. People would not suffer from lack of medical care and loss of jobs. And you wouldn’t have the kind of poverty, homelessness and food banks that you see in a country with a per capita income of $44,000,” he said.

Charles Kenny says that predicting the future of the world’s economies is useful because it helps you think about what issues like poverty or military spending might look like in the future and tailor policy discussions around it.

He expressed concern that his projections showed little growth in rich countries – population aging could lead them to adopt isolationist and authoritarian policies in response to recessions – but overall he said he was optimistic.

“If you look at demographic trends, it all seems really quite positive for low- and middle-income countries in general. Therefore, I am more optimistic about them, with the caveat that partly it depends on what rich countries are doing, and with a caveat about simple unknowns, ”the expert noted.