E/CN.4/1999/48 page 12 the dignity of every human being - especially the poorest - at the very foundation of its approach to development, the Bank helps people in every part of the world build lives of purpose and hope. 2 43. Within the United Nations system, Overcoming Human Poverty, produced with help from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank, has defined four indicators to be used for measuring progress: (a) Income poverty. The lack of minimally adequate income or expenditures. The global target is to halve the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by 2015. The indicator for this will be the poverty headcount ratio - the proportion of the population whose income or consumption falls below US$ 1 per day. On this basis, the required reduction is from 30 per cent to 15 per cent. Built into this target is the requirement that the depth of poverty should not get worse. In addition, each country may replace the US$ 1-per-day threshold with a nationally chosen poverty line. (b) Relative poverty. Poverty defined by standards that can change across countries or over time. An example is a poverty line set at one-half of mean per capita income. The target is to increase the national consumption of the poorest fifth of the population. (c) Malnutrition. The global target is that, by 2005, the proportion of malnourished children should halve by 2005 and halve again between 2005 and 2015. The indicator for this will be the proportion of children under five who are underweight. (d) Literacy. According to UNICEF (The State of the World's Children 1999), there are some 855 million illiterate adults worldwide, two thirds of whom are women. Illiteracy among adults (15-24) must be reduced by three quarters by 2015 and the male and female rates must then be the same. This means that global illiteracy rates for men and women will have to be brought down to 8 per cent by 2015. A. United Nations Development Programme 44. The Human Development Report 1997 introduced the concept of human poverty, which centres on a denial of the opportunities and choices most basic to human development, such as the opportunity to lead a long, healthy, creative life and to enjoy a decent standard of living, freedom, dignity, self-respect and the respect of others. From this perspective, poverty is a process and not a condition. The concept of human poverty looks at the potential of the most deprived and the resources they need to escape from poverty. It also takes account of gender inequality, which makes it possible to examine the way in which household resources - food, education and health services, but also productive resources - are shared among family members. 45. The human poverty indicator (HPI) developed by UNDP includes the proportion of adult illiterates, the proportion of people likely to die before they reach 40, and a third variable - described as a lack of decent living conditions in broad economic terms - represented by a composite sub-indicator