these matters. Papers in this volume discuss child poverty
measurement, trends in global poverty and inequality, outcomes for
children, and policies to address them.
We start by revising how poverty is measured, calling for new
multidimensional poverty measurements to better appreciate the
reality of children in the world. According to orthodox estimations
of an international extreme poverty line of $1 a day, the total
number of poor people around the world has declined drastically;
approximately one billion people have escaped extreme poverty
since 1981. This approach celebrates that poverty reduction of this
magnitude is unparalleled in history; never before have so many
people been lifted out of poverty over such a brief period of time.
However, many have noted shortcomings in these estimates. To
start, while the number of people living in extreme poverty on less
than $1 a day (adjusted to $1.25 a day measured at 2005
international prices), declined globally from 1.9 billion in 1981 to
1.4 billion in 2005, this decline was largely due to progress in China
and East Asia; however, the absolute number of people living in
poverty actually went up during this period in Sub-Saharan Africa,
as in many developing countries in other regions. Additionally,
there are concerns about an international income-based poverty line
as a meaningful measure of poverty. Evidence suggests that such
poverty lines misrepresent the actual extent of poverty. Many
criticisms have emerged on how they are adjusted with time; for
instance, the World Bank’s adjustment of poverty lines is not based
on the United States rate of inflation; had it been taken into
account, the original $1 a day would have become $1.45 a day for
2005, with obvious implications for the corresponding estimates of
people in poverty, and hence, for the achievement of the
Millennium Development Goals poverty target by 2015. Further,
the companion $2 a day poverty line was never adjusted. Even if
extreme poverty has reduced significantly in some countries like