In fact, the Millennium Development Goals encompass a considerable number of the dimensions that are often discussed within the context of the definition of poverty. In the end, of course, what matters most for national policymaking is how each society defines the decent level of living that should be achievable by all. For example, the total number of poor (according to the definition above) had been 1.8 billion in 1990 and 1.9 billion in 1981 (compared with 1.4 billion in 2005).