Twenty years ago, on the eve of the new millennium, the international community came together under the umbrella of the United Nations to set itself a series of targets, the so-called Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs.

They were pledges to try and improve the lives of millions of people around the world. The number one target was to bring the number of people living in extreme poverty down to three percent of the world's population by 2030.

"The best way to foster more cohesive and inclusive society is to provide everybody with a decent job and income." 

Those were the comments of the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab as he prepares to welcome international leaders to Davos for the 50^th anniversary gathering.

Since the first World Economic Forum in 1971, the world's poor, classed as those living on less than $1.90 a day, has fallen from around 2 billion to under six hundred million.

As globalization and trade barriers have fallen, remarkable progress in ending poverty has been made across much of the world despite growing populations.

"Over the past fifty years, the world has experienced an unprecedented moment of collective growth," according to Kristofer Hamel, the Chief Operating Officer of the World Poverty Clock, an initiative by World Data Lab to provide real-time statistics on extreme poverty along with regional breakdowns.

He credits the dramatic fall in poverty rates largely to the actions of two countries. 

"What we've seen in Asia has been a sustained period of considerable reforms by China and India, each pursuing its own package of reforms, but ultimately leading to the same very impressive success rates.

"China started with 800 million people living in poverty in the late 1980s and has been able to bring down that number down to just a few million."

The World Poverty Clock also has an interactive map tracking each countries progress on the SDGs.

Of the countries with extreme poverty, many in South America and Asia are on track to meet their goals.

But for Sub-Saharan Africa, it's a different story: multiple countries are not on track to meet those goals, while poverty is rising in many nations including regional economic leaders Nigeria and South Africa.

The continent is making progress but conflicts, fast growing populations, weaker economic growth and less robust governments, have all hindered a faster rate of change.

Looking to the future, Kristofer Hamel anticipates that the numbers of people in extreme need will continue to decline by around one hundred million by the end of the decade.

Where extreme poverty persists, it is likely to be concentrated in a handful of African countries.

While he says the world is not on track to make the Sustainable Development Goal on poverty, he insists there is reason for optimism: "Going forward we know what countries we need to focus on and by doing so with aid budgets and research, we can move those numbers."