New York – Extreme poverty has begun falling in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the 2007 United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) mid-point progress report.

According to the report which was recently released by the United Nations Information Centre, extreme poverty in the region fell from 46.8 percent in 1990 to 41.1 percent in 2004, registering an effective decline of 5.7 percentage points.

The report noted that much of the progress was achieved since 2000. “The number of people living on less than one US dollar a day is also beginning to level off, despite rapid population growth,” the report said.

The per capita income of seven sub-Saharan countries also grew by more than 3.5 percent a year between 2000 and 2005 while 23 countries had growth rates of more than two percent a year over the period, thus providing a degree of optimism for the future, according to the report.

Worldwide, the number of people in developing countries living on less than one USD a day had fallen to 980 million in 2004, from 1.25 billion in 1990, the report said. The proportion of people living in extreme poverty also fell from nearly a third to 19 per cent over this period.

“If progress continues, the MDG target will be met,” the report said.

The poverty gap ratio, which reflects the depth of poverty as well as its incidence, decreased in all regions except West Asia , where the rising poverty rate has caused the poverty gap to increase, and in transition countries in Europe and Commonwealth of Independent States where there has been marginal deterioration or no change.

However, despite all this improvement, the poverty gap ratio in sub-Saharan Africa remains the highest in the world, indicating that the poor in that region are the most economically disadvantaged in the world.

UN member states adopted eight MDGs in 2000, which was a first attempt by the international community to set time-bound targets for development, which are to be achieved by 2015.