What is poverty * Extreme poverty is the severe lack of material possessions or money. In 2005 the World Bank defined extreme poverty as living on less than US$1.25 a day. This meant living on the equivalent of US$1.25 a day, in the US, buying US goods. In 2011, this means surviving on the equivalent to US$1.50 or £1 per day.
This graph shows the proportion of world population in extreme poverty 1981–2008 according to the World Bank
This graph shows the proportion of world population in extreme poverty 1981–2008 according to the World Bank

* Absolute poverty is defined as living on the equivalent of US$2 a day or less. In 2002, 43% of the world’s population lived on this little. This money has to cover the basics of food, shelter and water. Medicines, new clothing, and school books would not be on the priority list. When almost an entire population lives on this little, it is unsurprising if undernourishment is high, education levels are low, and life expectancy is short. In both Nigeria and Mali, 9 of every ten people survive on less than US $2 a day.

* Relative poverty views poverty as socially defined and dependent on social context, hence relative poverty is a measure of income inequality. Usually, relative poverty is measured as the percentage of population with income less than some fixed proportion of median income.
Relative poverty measures are used as official poverty rates in several developed countries. As such these poverty statistics measure inequality rather than material deprivation or hardship. The measurements are usually based on a person's yearly income and frequently take no account of total wealth. The main poverty line used in the OECD and the European Union is based on "economic distance", a level of income set at 60% of the median household income

Characteristics of poverty
Health
One third of deaths – some 18 million people a year or 50,000 per day – are due to poverty-related causes: in total 270 million people, most of them women and children, have died as a result of poverty since 1990. Those living in poverty suffer disproportionately from hunger or even starvation and disease. Those living in poverty suffer lower life expectancy. According to the World Health Organization, hunger and malnutrition are the single gravest threats to the world's public health and malnutrition is by far the biggest contributor to child mortality, present in half of all cases. Almost 90% of maternal deaths during childbirth occur in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, compared to less than 1% in the developed world.
Those who live in poverty have also been shown to have a far greater likelihood of having or incurring a disability within their lifetime.[Infectious diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis can perpetuate poverty by diverting health and economic resources from investment and productivity; malaria decreases GDP growth by up to 1.3% in some developing nations and AIDS decreases African growth by 0.3–1.5% annually.
Hunger
Rises in the costs of living means that poor people less able to afford items. Poor people spend a greater portion of their budgets on food than richer people. As a result, poor households and those near the poverty threshold can be particularly vulnerable to increases in food prices. For example, in late 2007 increases in the price of grains led to food riots in some countries. The World Bank warned that 100 million people were at risk of sinking deeper into poverty. Threats to the supply of food may also be caused by drought and the water crisis. Intensive farming often leads to a vicious cycle of exhaustion of soil fertility and decline of agricultural yields. Approximately 40% of the world's agricultural land is seriously degraded. In Africa, if current trends of soil degradation continue, the continent might be able to feed just 25% of its population by 2025, according to United Nations University's Ghana-based Institute for Natural Resources in Africa. Every year