Recent gains in millennium development goal 1 have seen the number of hungry people in the world decrease to fewer than 1 billion, though the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations believes that this number is still unacceptably high.
Millennium Development Goal 1 has three targets:
- To halve the proportion of people whose daily income is less than $1.25
- To achieve full and productive employment, as well as decent work for all, including young people and women
- To halve the proportion of individuals suffering from hunger in the period between 1990 and 2015.
Pioneering efforts have led to profound achievements including:
- A considerable reduction in extreme poverty over the last 25 years. In 1990, nearly 50 percent of the population in developing nations lived on less than $1.25 a day. As of 2015, that proportion has dropped to 14 percent.
- The number of people living in extreme poverty worldwide has reduced by more than 50 percent. In 1990, 1.9 billion people were said to be living in extreme poverty, compared to 836 million in 2015. Most progress was seen in the new millennium.
- The number of living on more than $4 a day – those in the working middle class – has nearly tripled between 1991 and 2015. In 1991, this group made only 18 percent of the population, and rose to 50 percent in 2015.
- The proportion of undernourished people in the developing world has dropped by almost 50 percent since 1990; from 23.3 percent in 1990 – ’92 to 12.9 percent in 2014 – ’16.