The concept is accredited to Charles Booth,5 who undertook to classify London's society statistically into four categories on the basis of daily income. Measurability and quantification were crucial for the success of this approach. Since Booth's work, many countries have adopted different criteria for the definition of poverty through income grouping. The World Bank played a major role in establishing the first unified international standard for the measurement of poverty in the 1990s with reference to those earning less than $ 1 a day.6 In 2000 the United Nations consolidated this approach by adopting the Millennium Development Goals, particularly goal 1, aimed at the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger.