July 2000 - Poverty in the developing world will decline by roughly half by 2015 if current growth trends and policies persist. But a disproportionate share of poverty reduction will occur in East and South Asia, poverty will decline only slightly in Sub-Saharan Africa, and it will increase in...

Global poverty, economist Collier points out, is actually falling quite rapidly for about 80% of the world. The real crisis lies in a group of about 50 failing states, the bottom billion, whose problems defy traditional approaches to alleviating poverty. Here, Collier contends that these fifty...