According to Jason Hickel [1] global poverty has been rather constant throughout the century, and what he calls “the good news narrative” is based on heavily doctored figures by the World Bank and profit driven NGOs to camouflage their abject failures. Hans Rosling was a known propagator of this story.

I have not studied his claims but he makes a forceful argument in his book.

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32603498-the-divide