ABOUT THE POPULATION COUNCIL
Millennium Development Goals

1. Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger

• Reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day
• Reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger

More than 1 billion people currently live on less than $1 a day, the definition of extreme poverty. These people cannot afford nutritious food, clean water, shelter, or basic health care. They generally lack education and a voice in civic and legal affairs; they are vulnerable to coercion and threats of violence from a variety of sources.

More than fifty years ago, the Population Council was founded with the intention of improving the lives of the poorest people through research on ways to improve the quality and increase the coverage of reproductive and other health services. Over the past decades the Council has focused on achieving this goal through research on reproductive health, family planning, and HIV. More recently, Council researchers have conducted investigations of the factors that increase the vulnerability of poor people to HIV infection, the differences and similarities between urban and rural poverty, and poverty’s impact on the elderly.

Education has long been seen as one of the most powerful tools for reducing poverty and hunger. Much of the Council's work on poverty has focused on young people and schooling.

Council findings illuminate the causes and consequences of poverty and inform policymaking and the design of programs to help the most vulnerable people.

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Selected Projects

• Measures of Urban Poverty (1999–ongoing)
• Ghana: Ghana Essential Medicines Initiative (2006–2009)
• South Africa: Gender, Socioeconomic Status, and Youth HIV Risk (2004–2007)
• Vietnam: Findings from Recent and Ongoing Youth and Family Studies (1999–2007)
• Guatemala: Creating Opportunities for Mayan Adolescent Girls (completed 2006)

See Also

• "A new UN goal," by Saroj Pachauri (full text)

• Urban Poverty and Health