‘More than 1 billion people live in acute poverty’

United Nations: A stark new report released Thursday by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) reveals that over 1.1 billion people worldwide live in acute poverty, with more than half of them being children. The report highlights the urgent need for international action to address the growing crisis, particularly in conflict-affected and fragile regions.

According to the report, which provides the latest update to the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), nearly 40 per cent of those living in acute poverty reside in countries experiencing war, fragility, or low levels of peacefulness. The alarming figures reveal that 455 million of the world’s poor are situated in conflict-ridden areas, where escalating violence has disrupted lives and livelihoods, reversing hard-won progress in poverty alleviation.

Achim Steiner, the UNDP Administrator, commented on the findings, stating: “Conflicts have intensified and multiplied in recent years, reaching new highs in casualties and displacing record millions of people. Our new research shows that of the 1.1 billion people living in multidimensional poverty, almost half a billion live in countries exposed to violent conflict.

We must accelerate action to support them, and we need resources and access for specialised development and early recovery interventions to help break the cycle of poverty and crisis.”

The report also underscores the significant demographic of impoverished individuals: more than 584 million, or approximately 53 per cent of those living in acute poverty, are children under the age of 18. This means that 27.9 per cent of children globally live in poverty, compared to just 13.5 per cent of adults.

The findings paint a grim picture of the conditions faced by the impoverished. An overwhelming majority lack basic necessities: 828 million people do not have adequate sanitation, 886 million lack proper housing, and 998 million are without access to cooking fuel. Additionally, 637 million people live in households where at least one individual is undernourished. The situation is particularly dire in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, where 272 million and 256 million people, respectively, live in undernourished households.

The report also highlights geographical disparities in poverty levels, noting that over 83 per cent of poor people reside in rural areas.

In comparison, only 6.6 per cent of the urban population is classified as poor.

The findings indicate that 28.0 per cent of the global rural population lives in poverty, reflecting the harsher realities faced by those in these communities.

India is identified as one of the five countries with the largest number of individuals living in poverty, accounting for 234 million people.

The report ranks India alongside Pakistan (93 million), Ethiopia (86 million), Nigeria (74 million), and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (66 million). Collectively, these five nations represent nearly half (48.1 per cent) of the global population living in acute poverty.

The report reveals that, while poverty rates vary between countries, those affected by conflict exhibit significantly higher poverty levels. The overall poverty incidence in war-torn regions stands at 34.8 per cent, starkly contrasting with the 10.9 per cent in countries not affected by such conflicts.

Furthermore, multidimensional poverty is more than twice as prevalent in fragile and conflict-affected regions.

To compile these findings, the UNDP and OPHI utilised original statistical research on multidimensional poverty across 112 countries and 6.3 billion people.

The report emphasises the challenges posed by a lack of data, necessitating the use of a decade-long period (2012-2023) to create a comparable index of global poverty levels and trends