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Let us highlight the main lessons to be learnt from the recent World Bank report on poverty. The key lesson sounds very positive: globally, extreme poverty has declined significantly. In 2011, 1 billion people could be classified as extremely poor compared to 1.25 billion in 2008. And these figures should improve in the years to come. The main goal will be to reduce, and this won't be an easy task, the share of people living on less than US$ 1.25 a day to less than 3% of the global population by 2030. It must be noted that almost three-fifths of the world's extreme poor are concentrated in just 5 countries: Bangladesh, China, the Democratic Rep.of Congo, India and Nigeria. Two additional comments must be made.Economy growth is likely to remain robust in emerging markets. Thus, India's growth is expected to exceed 7% of GDP in 2014-15. But in many developed countries, even like Denmark or Sweden, income inequalities will increase the stress and instability in the societies. Finally, wherever you are in the world, investments in human capital through lifelong learning will be essential to get out of poverty and social exclusion.

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