The English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran will headline the Global Citizen Festival, a free concert in New York aimed at rallying support to fight global poverty.
Britain's opposition centre-left Labour urged Prime Minister David Cameron to address low pay after a charity revealed more than one million people were reliant on food banks.
More than 82 million people in China still live on less than about $1 a day, despite a decades-long boom that made it the world's second-largest economy.
Desperate Syrian refugee families in Lebanon are slipping further into debt and poverty, affecting their children's education and their dignity, an international aid agency said Thursday.
Women in poverty-stricken Papua New Guinea suffer "severe brutality" with violence, including savage attacks involving knives, axes and whips, occurring in two-thirds of all families.
In his first year as president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim has tried to refocus the institution on fighting poverty and climate change -- but challenges lie ahead.
Thousands of protesters are expected on the streets of Belfast to urge G8 leaders to act on global poverty, although the issue looks likely to be overshadowed by concerns over the Syria conflict.
The globe's poorest nations have won an eight-year extension of a waiver on intellectual property rules, but still need to hold talks on the vexed issue of pharmaceutical patents.