The pace of poverty reduction in Latin America has slowed from 5.7 percent annually in the previous decade to 4.1 percent now, the World Bank said Wednesday.

Poverty, defined as living on less than $4 a day, decreased from 25.3 percent of the population in 2012 to 24.3 percent in 2013, while extreme poverty – less than $2.50 a day – dropped from 12.2 percent to 11.5 percent, the Bank said in the report “Working to End Poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean.”

The ranks of the region’s poor declined at an annual rate of 5.7 percent between 2003 and 2008, with the reduction slowing to 4.6 percent a year in the 2008-2012 period.

“In recent years, the momentum for social achievements has weakened in Latin America and the Caribbean,” said Louise Cord, practice manager in the Poverty Global Practice for the World Bank’s Latin America and the Caribbean Region.

Latin America Herald Tribune