United States: A new report has stated that the end of extreme poverty may finally be achieved by 2050, spurred by economic growth in low-income countries.

According to a Centre for Global Development (CGD) report, though the COVID pandemic adversely affected efforts to eradicate extreme poverty and additional challenges will emerge, the damage may have a very limited impact on the overall trajectory of economic growth.

“We know the world is going to look very different in 2050, and climate change is a huge concern for the future. But we can’t let it overshadow the fact that continued economic growth should leave almost no one in the most desperate poverty that was the lot of the vast majority of humanity for most of history, albeit decades after it could have been eradicated,” Mr. Charles Kenny, a senior fellow at CGD and one of the report’s authors, commented.

Mr. Kenny noted that the inequality is likely to remain and poverty will still exist, but higher growth should mean most people have stable employment and incomes, rather than relying on precarious informal labour or subsistence farming. The report’s author further remarked that by 2050, no country will be classed as low-income, currently defined as having a GNI per capita of $1,085 or less.

According to thereport, , extreme poverty, which is living on less than $2.15 a day, would decrease below 2 percent globally by 2050 from about 8 percent in 2022. In Africa, it would fall from 29 percent to 7 percent.

The report pointed out that more than two-thirds of the world could be living on more than $10 a day by 2050, up from about 42 percent at present.

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

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