A/HRC/44/40 of tropical and less urbanized countries, and whether the IPL really captures what it purports to. 26. Moreover, the Bank continues to characterize the IPL as a “crucial way of measuring progress,”47 and States continue to base key policy prescriptions on it. This enables it to conclude that extreme poverty is disappearing in most regions of the world. Bank staff may attempt to downplay the IPL’s significance by pointing to work using alternative lines and national definitions, but this belies the prominence of the line in the public consciousness, its role in shaping the narrative of success promoted by the Bank, the UN, and others, and its impact on the last 30 years of international policymaking. While it may be a fool’s errand to pursue a single ‘true’ poverty line, that does not mean all lines are equally valid. The Bank’s approach is woefully inadequate as the basis for a shared understanding of progress on poverty. C. The failure to eliminate poverty 27. Using a more defensible line generates a radically different understanding of progress against poverty. Even under the Bank’s line, the figures are terrible: 700 million people living under $1.90 a day is abhorrent. But, using more realistic measures, the extent of global poverty is vastly higher and the trends discouraging. 28. Rather than one billion people lifted out of poverty and a global decline from 36 percent to 10 percent, many lines show only a modest decline in rate and a nearly stagnant headcount. The number living under a $5.50 line held almost steady between 1990 and 2015, declining from 3.5 to 3.4 billion, while the rate dropped from 67 percent to 46 percent. 48 Using Ravallion’s weakly relative line, the number in poverty declined slightly from 2.55 billion to 2.3 billion between 1990 and 2013, falling from 48 to 32 percent. 49 Under the Bank’s societal poverty line, the headcount declined from 2.35 billion to 2.1 billion between 1990 and 2015, and the rate declined from 44.5 percent to 28.5 percent.50 Today, the leading global non-monetary measure of deprivation, the Multidimensional Poverty Index, covering 101 developing countries, yields a poverty rate of 23 percent. 51 29. Even under the Bank’s line, the trends in certain regions are deeply troubling. Between 1990 and 2015, the number of people living under the line in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East rose by some 140 million.52 Appallingly, the standard of living of the world’s poorest, surviving on just half the Bank’s austere line, has only increased a small amount in 30 years.53 30. The world is not even close to ending poverty. While SDG 1 calls for a rate of zero under the IPL by 2030, the Bank does not foresee an end to poverty even under that line. Assuming that every country grows as it did between 2005 and 2015 (doubtful), the Bank projects a poverty rate of 6 percent in 2030.54 Under a $5.04 line, projections show 28 percent of the world, or 2.35 billion people, in poverty in 2030. 55 These projections will deteriorate immensely as COVID-19 continues to ravage economies and public health. 31. Moreover, climate change will make a mockery of these projections since few governments are taking the drastic steps needed to address emissions or their impact on poverty. As of 2016 climate change was projected to push 100 million people below the IPL 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 8 World Bank, Poverty and Shared Prosperity, p. 3. Ibid, p. 83. Ravallion, “On Measuring Global Poverty,” 2019, pp. 22-23. Espen Beer Prydz and Dean Jolliffe, “Societal Poverty: A global measure of relative poverty,” World Bank, 11 September 2019; World Bank, Poverty and Shared Prosperity, p. 77. UNDP, Human Development Report, 2019, p. 68. World Bank, Poverty and Shared Prosperity, p. 42. Martin Ravallion, “Are the world’s poorest being left behind?,” The Journal of Economic Growth, 2016, p. 161. World Bank, Poverty and Shared Prosperity, p. 24. Sanjay Reddy, “Global Absolute Poverty: The Beginning of the End,” 10 February 2020, Tables 8-9.