on the other hand most of the subsaharan african countries in the lower ranks of the figure have either witnessed increased poverty or relatively slow progress towards poverty reduction the divergent experiences within the group of countries recording mass poverty are of paramount importance in understanding the problem of persistent extreme poverty at the global level the comparison of the experience of this group of countries with those at less extreme levels of poverty as defined by international poverty lines can also be instructive figure shows examples of typical country experiences in relation to their poverty trends and the effect of changes in income distribution on poverty