ROME – In early 2012, outgoing World Bank President Robert Zoellick announced that the Millennium Development Goal of halving the global poverty rate relative to its 1990 level had been achieved in 2010 – five years ahead of schedule. But many analysts have challenged estimates that rely on the World Bank’s current poverty line, raised in 2008 from $1 to $1.25 per day, in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms.