This is the first volume in an ambitious new series Patterns of Potential Human Progress inspired by the UN Millennium Development Goals (MGDs) and other initiatives to improve the global condition. The first and most fundamental of these goals reducing poverty worldwide is the focus of this book. Using the large-scale computer program called International Futures (IFs), developed over three decades at the prestigious University of Denver Graduate School of International Studies, this book explores the most extensive set of forecasts of global poverty ever made providing a wide range of scenarios based on an authoritative array of data. It transcends the $1 a day baseline measure of poverty and probes important concepts like income poverty gaps and relative poverty. The forecasts are long-term, looking 50 years into the future, far beyond the 2015 date set out by the MDGs. They are geographically rich, spanning the entire globe and drilling down to the country level, including one of the most important global focal points, India. The poverty forecasts in this book, and all the volumes in the series, are fully integrated in perspective across a wide range of human development arenas including demographics, economics, politics, agriculture, energy, and the environment. Full of colorful and thoughtfully designed graphs, tables, maps, and other visual presentations of data and forecasts, this large-format inaugural volume ensures that the Patterns of Potential Human Progress series will become an indispensable resource for every development professional, student, professor, library, and indeed, country around the world.
