On Poverty, Millennium Development

More than a billion people live in extreme poverty, spending less than one dollar per person a day, however the share of extreme poverty has been reduced in the last decennia. The most important Millennium Development Goal (MDG) is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger before 2015; to reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day and to reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger. Micro-credit plays an important role to achieve this MDG. First, this thesis examines the relation between micro-credit on the amount of people below $1 a day and the possible GDP growth. Secondly, the thesis discusses what the driving force behind micro-credit is. The most important result is that the declining number of poor people has a positive effect on the level of micro-credit and not the other way around. Micro-credit helps to achieve the most important MDG, but the poor people are the driving force.