According to a UN Development Programme report released Thursday, over one billion people worldwide live in extreme poverty, with children making up more than half of those impacted.
Given that 2023 witnessed the highest number of international wars since World War II, the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) research pointed out that poverty rates were three times greater in war-torn nations.
Since 2010, the OPHI and UNDP have released their Multidimensional Poverty Index every year, using data from 112 nations with a total population of 6.3 billion.
It makes use of metrics including inadequate housing, poor sanitation, power, fuel for cooking, poor nutrition, and absenteeism from school.
Yanchun Zhang, chief statistician at the UNDP, said, “The 2024 MPI presents a grim picture: 1.1 billion people suffer multiple levels of poverty, of which 455 million remain in a state of conflict.”
“The fight for basic necessities is a far harsher and more severe battle for the impoverished in conflict-affected countries,” Zhang told AFP.
The research confirmed the results from the previous year, which showed that 1.1 billion out of 6.1 billion people in 110 countries lived in extreme multidimensional poverty.
According to Thursday’s report, 584 million kids under the age of 18 lived in severe poverty, making up 27.9% of all children globally as opposed to 13.5% of adults.
