Poor people-the destitute, disease-ridden and malnourished "bottom billion"—live in poor countries. That has been the central operating assumption of the aid business for a decade.rnThe thesis was true in 1990: then, over 90% of the world's poor lived in the world's poorest places. But it looks out of date now. Andy Sumner of Britain's Institute of Development Studies* reckons that almost three-quarters of the 1.3 billion-odd people existing below the $1.25 a day poverty line now live in middle-income countries. Only a quarter live in the poorest states (mostly in Africa).
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