In the last two decades, a net 189 million people have been lifted out of extreme poverty in the Commonwealth.

Source: World Bank (2019)

Commonwealth countries account for 19% of all people lifted out of extreme poverty in the world in the last two decades. Most member countries reduced both relative poverty (i.e. percentage of population that is poor) and absolute poverty (i.e. number of poor), but there are also some countries that only reduced relative poverty – indicating that population growth is outpacing the growth of people living under extreme poverty.