World Development Indicators (WDI) 2007 is out.

WDI is the World Bank's premier annual compilation of data about development. The 2007 WDI includes more than 900 indicators in over 80 tables organized in 6 sections: World View, People, Environment, Economy, States and Markets, and Global Links. 

According to the data, 1 billion people, or 18.4 percent of the population, lived under extreme poverty (less than $1 a day) in 2004. Nothing to celebrate about that figure, except the fact that it has been decreasing, from 1.25 billion in 1990. The rate of people living on $2 a day has been falling too, but 2.6 billion people (almost half of the population in the developing world) were still living below that level in 2004.

Developing countries have averaged a 3.9 percent annual growth in GDP per capita a year since 2000, which contributed to rapidly falling poverty rates in all developing regions over the past few years. Another key factor in the reduction of worldwide poverty rates has been China's massive poverty reduction between 1990 and 2004. 

The report finds that, in the past decade, poverty reduction was not always or everywhere commensurate with income growth. In some countries and regions, inequality worsened, as poor people did not reap the fruits of economic expansion, because of a lack of job opportunities, limited education or bad health.

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