Washington: The proportion of people living on less than one US Dollar a day decreased from 40 to 21 per cent of the global population between 1981 and 2001, says the World Bank's latest annual report.

The President of the Bank, James Wolfensohn, said in his overall review that the past year had brought with it signs of hope and progress, but it had also brought signs of concern in the fight against global poverty.

On a positive note, new data this year showed that the number of poor people continues to fall. Development indicators were clearly improving in countries that had laid good foundations for growth.

The progress, though, was uneven across the globe.

Growth in East Asia had meant that there were 500 million fewer people living below $1 a day in 2001 than in 1981. The number of poor people had also fallen in South Asia and in the Middle East and North Africa, though less dramatically than in East Asia.

However, the absolute number of poor people had risen in African, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Europe and Central Asia.

Wolfensohn recalled his statement at the last annual meeting that the world he "saw today was a world out of balance". Of the six billion people of the world today, one billion people live in wealthy countries. They accounted for 80 per cent of the world's Gross Domestic Product while the other five billion have 20 per cent.