Latin America has still a long way to run to defeat extreme poverty. According to a report published by the World Bank, 47 million Latin Americans are still living in extreme poverty.

The 2007 Global Monitoring Report, a yearly survey conducted by the WB, said the proportion of Latin Americans living on less than USD 1 a day is decreasing "slightly from some 9 percent in 2002 to 8.6 percent in 2004, thus allowing some 700,000 people to overcome extreme poverty.

The report was disclosed by World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, during a meeting with International Monetary Fund Managing Director Rodrigo Rato in Washington, stressed that Latin America and the Caribbean are "likely" to approach to the first development goal of the millennium, namely reducing poverty by half by 2015.

In Venezuela, WB said that in 2003 18.5 percent of the population lived on less than USD 1 a day.

As to the goal to make children complete at least primary school, Venezuela, just like the rest of the countries in the region, is near the goal, with 92 percent in 2005 compared to 43 percent in 1991.

While in 1991, 5 percent of Venezuelan children suffered malnutrition, in 2000-2005 it dropped to 4 percent.

Infant mortality rate in Venezuela fell from 33 per 1,000 in 1990 to 21 per 1,000 in 2005.