Poverty is spreading. There are now as many people living in absolute poverty - almost a billion in the rural Third World alone - as there were living on the entire planet only a century ago. Yet poverty continues to be shrouded in mystery. Consider that four-fifths of the world's poor live in rural areas; about 340 million people worldwide are currently chronically ill from malnutrition; over 500 million do not get enough calories to do a full day's labor; at a time when enough grain is being produced to provide everyone in the world with twice the daily minimum caloric requirements, global hunger is at an all-time high; and half again as many rural women - almost 600 million - live in absolute poverty today as did 20 years ago. We need to ask ourselves what has gone wrong. Despite almost four decades and billions of dollars in development activities, we are barely in a position to track the changing dynamics of poverty or to define with conviction the processes that entrap the poor in their misery. Accounting for about 90% of global poverty, rural poverty, through transmigration, is also a main contributor to urban poverty. It is in the rural areas of the world where poverty is most severe in human terms, where the hunger, hopelessness, hardship, and despair commonly associated with entrenched poverty are most pronounced, where basic health services, sanitation, educational opportunities, and other common amenities are most lacking. The alleviation of rural poverty is therefore tantamount to the alleviation of global poverty in its entirety. The State of World Rural Poverty offers the first comprehensive look at the economic conditions and prospects of the world's rural poor. Certain to become a definitive source of data and analysis, especially for the unique rural poverty indexes of 114 developing countries, as well as an invaluable policy guide to issues involving development and poverty in underdeveloped nations, this volume incorporates research from all over the world.