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A new World Bank report has shown that the rate of extreme poverty fell in sub-Saharan Africa from 56% in 1990 to 43% in 2012. However, there are an estimated 63 million more people living in extreme poverty in Africa today than in 1990 as a result of the sub-continent's increased population growth that has outpaced economic output, the report, entitled, “Poverty in a Rising Africa,” states.

“We understand poverty has been going down in Africa significantly,” The World Bank Vice President, Africa Region, Mr. Makhtar Diop, said during a video conference over this weekend as the world marked the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. “But while we are saying that, we have a lot of work to do because we still have a larger number of poor people in Africa, hundreds of millions,” Diop added.

Saturday, October 17, was the United Nations International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. The day was adopted in December 22, 1992 by the UN General Assembly. The observance of the day is traced back to October 17, 1987. On that day, over a hundred thousand people gathered at the Trocadéro in Paris , where the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" was signed in 1948, to honour the victims of extreme poverty, violence and hunger. The crowds of people proclaimed that poverty is a violation of human rights and affirmed the need to come together to ensure that these rights are respected.

In April 2013, the World Bank Group stated its agenda to end extreme poverty. World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said: "For the first time in history we have committed to setting a target to end poverty." The goals of the Bank include seeing a drop in the percentage of people living on less than $1.25 a day to 3 percent by 2030, and promoting the "shared prosperity" of the low per capita income population in every country.

Meanwhile, on October 4, 2015, the World Bank announced that, for the first time, the number of extremely poor people is projected to drop below 10% of the world’s population in 2015 – to about 700 million people, down from about 900 million in 2012.

However, data is crucial in the agenda to end extreme poverty, especially in Africa where data is sparse and inconsistent across the region. 21 countries in Africa did not have at least two surveys with which to track poverty.

Dr. Kim said, “We will not be able to reach our goal unless we have data to show whether people are actually lifting themselves out of poverty. Collecting good data is one of the most powerful tools to end extreme poverty.”