Africa’s strong economic growth has contributed to improving people’s health and education in the past 20 years as well as major reductions in poverty in several countries, but a rapid rise in population has led to increases in the overall number of extreme poor, the World Bank Group said in a comprehensive report on poverty in the region. The report estimates that 388 million people – or 43 percent of all people living in Sub-Saharan Africa – lived in extreme poverty in 2012, the last year that figures were available, a decrease of 5 million people from 2011. In a separate report, the Global Monitoring Report, released earlier this month, the World Bank projected that 347 million people are living in extreme poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa this year. While the percentage of Africans living in poverty has decreased over time, the sheer numbers have grown. An estimated 284 million Africans lived in poverty in 1990. The report, “Poverty in a Rising Africa,” was released in Ghana at a high-level event commemorating End Poverty Day, which was attended by World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim, government leaders, and civil society partners.