Latest figures show an urgent need for inclusive growth Robust economic growth in the first few years of the 21st century has helped reduce poverty worldwide. But new numbers show that the actual extent of deprivation in India and elsewhere is far greater than previously thought. This insight does not question the role of growth in improving livelihoods, but it spotlights the need for much greater inclusiveness in the growth process in the face of the scale of poverty. Sustained growth remains a high priority. But it is not just how fast a country grows; crucially, it is also how it grows. Widening gaps between the rich and the poor dampen the impact of growth on poverty. Countries such as Brazil or Mexico have historically had a much higher income inequality than India or Indonesia. But disparities have been rising in recent years in the large Asian countries, while they have been falling in major Latin American nations. The new poverty estimates from the World Bank incorporate the finding that living costs are actually higher than estimated before, reflected in a global poverty line of $1.25 a day. These calculations suggest that as of 2005 there were 1.4 billion people worldwide living in extreme poverty. One-third of them would be in India, signifying the largest number of poor compared to other countries