Summary |
Despite the global financial crisis, poverty rates in developing countries continue to fall, with every likelihood of reaching and then exceeding the millennium development goals target in most regions of the world. Since the turn of the century, 37 million more children have enrolled in primary school. Measles immunization rates have risen to 81 percent, with similar progress in other vaccination programs and health-related services. Since 2000 the number of children dying before age 5 has fallen from more than 10 million a year to 8.8 million.
So, much progress. But we still have far to go. Global and regional averages cannot disguise the large differences between countries. Average annual incomes range from $280 to more than $60,000 per person. Life expectancy ranges from 44 year to 83 years. And differences within countries can be even greater. But we should not be discouraged. Nor should we conclude that the effort has failed just because some countries will fall short of the targets. The millennium development goals have helped to focus development efforts where they will do the most good and have created new demand for good statistics.
Responding to the demand for statistics to monitor progress on the millennium development goals, developing countries and donor agencies have invested in statistical systems, conducted more frequent surveys, and improved methodologies. And the results are beginning to show in the pages of world development indicators. But here too our success makes us keenly aware of the need to do more to enrich the quality of development statistics.
And we are just as committed to making them more widely available. With the release of the 2010 edition of world development indicators, the World Bank is redesigning its web sites and making its development databases freely and fully accessible. As always, we invite your ideas and innovations in putting statistics in service to people.
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