this has reportedly led to instances where donor aid was redirected towards an increase in international reserves or not disbursed at all despite the existence of domestic needs and the ability of the government to absorb its this example illustrates incoherence between national development objectives and international policy agendas using the new international poverty line of per person per day in purchasing power parities ppps as defined by the world bank billion people representing about per cent of the developing world s population lived in poverty in see figure ii and box ii for a discussion of the thorny issue of defining poverty there are however large regional variations in the poverty trends see figures ii and ii