The World Bank’s latest PR campaign is that “for the first time in history” we can “eliminate extreme poverty” (for the hubris of this claim and the many times it’s been said before see here).
Lost in the fine print is the disclaimer that “extreme poverty” is defined as $1.25 / day.
And there has been some progress on that front (clic the pic for a better image):
However, since virtually all the decline from 1981 to 2009 is from China, I’d give the credit largely to “state capitalism” and not to any top down multilateral agency development program.
And, if we raise the bar on extreme poverty to, say, $2.00 per day, the situation is far from rosy (clic the pic for a better image):
At $2.00 China’s progress is not as great, India is regressing, as is SSA and overall, the number barely budges in the last…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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