Poverty in Asia and the Pacific: An Update

Abstract

Guanghua Wan and Iva Sebastian update poverty estimates for Asia and the Pacific from 2005 to 2008. It is found that those living below the $1.25 poverty line decreased from 903.4 million to 753.5 million and those below the $2 poverty line from 1.8 billion to 1.63 billion. However, Asia and the Pacific region remains home to the majority of the global poor. And performance of poverty reduction varied considerably across subregions and countries, with poor economies generally lagging behind.