Washington, April 22 (IANS/RIA Novosti): The World Bank governors have endorsed a proposal to eliminate extreme poverty around the world over the next 17 years, the World Bank Group said in statement.

The proposal, put forward by World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim, sets an ambitious goal to reduce the number of people living on $1.25 a day to 3 percent or less of the world's population by 2030.

The World Bank's 25-member Development Committee, which meets twice a year during the World Bank/IMF spring and annual meetings, also confirmed the Group's vision to promote shared prosperity - fostering income growth of the bottom 40 percent of the population in every country.

Jim Yong Kim, who was elected as head of the World Bank last year, welcomed the support by the bank's governors by saying that the World Bank Group has a "historic opportunity" to help end extreme poverty within a generation.

"This endorsement is an important step. If we succeed, together, we would have accomplished an historic milestone," Kim said in closing remarks at the meeting of the Development Committee.

A report released by the World Bank earlier this week showed that there were still 1.2 billion people living in extreme poverty, with Sub-Saharan Africa accounting for more than one-third of the world's extreme poor.