November 14, 2007 (LPAC)--In a report released November 14, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), pointed out that at least 162 million people are living below 50 cents a day (this after the recent slide in value of the dollar!)

Despite the flatness of the world, as discovered by Tom Friedman, and the hallelujahs sung to glorify the economic liberalization and globalization over the last two decades, IFPRI says that very little poverty reduction occurred in this category of the ultra-poor. If you considered these 162 million as belonging to a single nation, it would be the seventh-largest in the world after China, India, the United States, Indonesia, Brazil, and Pakistan.

According to IFPRI, 121 million of the 162 million live in sub-Saharan Africa and about 29 million in South and East Asia.

Nigeria is the most populous country in the region, and accounts for between 21 and 30 percent of the ultra, medial and subjacent poor people living in the subcontinent. Between 1990 and 2004, the country saw increases in all three poverty categories, with a substantial rise in ultra poverty, the IFPRI report says.

In Zambia, the severity of poverty experienced by many people lessened between 1990 and 2004, with the rate of ultra poverty falling nearly 6 percent.