Given the trends as shown in table II.9, the least developed countries, landlocked developing countries, highly indebted poor countries and small island developing States will not meet the Millennium Development Goal target of halving poverty by 2015. European Union (EU) members and the United States of America have a long-standing tradition and practice of collecting national poverty data as well as releasing official poverty estimates. The prime concern is the standard of living relative to other people in the country, hence, poverty is a relative concept in the developed world. In the present section, therefore, the poverty estimates used are not comparable to those for developing countries as published by the World Bank.