for each country the main trends in poverty as measured by the share of population living on below and a day are shown with two hypothetical maximal and minimal poverty trends in each case the main trends are estimated on the basis of existing information on income distribution in the available household surveys the maximal or minimal trends are estimated by assuming that for the whole period income distribution remains at its most unequal or most equal level attained during the period since while per capita average consumption follows the same trend as in the main estimates