Global poverty: A plight still out of sight for too many

The economic geography of the world is changing. The eurozone faces the spectre of another round of stagnation; Japan has slipped into recession; and the US, despite relatively strong performance in the latter part of the year, has raised concerns worldwide with its exit from quantitative easing.

Meanwhile, emerging economies have continued to perform well. India and Indonesia are growing at more than 5% per year; Malaysia at 6%; and China by more than 7%.

The scale of the global change can be seen when purchasing power parity (PPP) — a measure of the total amount of goods and services that a dollar can buy in each country — is taken into account. According to the figures for 2011, released earlier this year, India is now the world’s third largest economy in terms of PPP-adjusted GDP, ahead of Germany and Japan.