May 28, 2011, Greencastle, Ind. — "Most people haven't noticed yet, but according to a recent study by the Brookings Institution in Washington, we have just lived through the most dramatic decrease in global poverty in history," notes a story published today in Canada's National Post.
"And the transformation has almost nothing to do with debt relief or higher aid flows.
According to the Brookings report, 'Poverty in Numbers: The Changing State of Global Poverty from 2005 to 2015,' we are living in a period of rapid global poverty reduction that is driven by high, sustained economic growth across the developing world.
Nearly half a billion people escaped living at or below the poverty threshold of U.S. $1.25-a-day between 2005 and 2010, say the study's authors Laurence Chandy and Geoffrey Gertz. 'Never before in history have so 
many people been lifted out of poverty in such a short period,' they said."
Geoff Gertz, a 2007 graduate of DePauw University, is a research analyst, global economy and development, at Brookings Institution.
Access the full story, and learn more about the report here.
In 2007, Gertz is received a Junior Fellowship from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Details are available in this previous story.