Pakistan holds second-largest population of people living in extreme poverty worldwide: UN

Over 1 billion people are struggling with extreme poverty worldwide, with Pakistan ranking second for the highest number of people living in destitution, followed by India, according to the UN Development Programme (UNDP) report.

The UNDP, in collaboration with the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), published these findings as part of their Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), which has been released annually since 2010.

The MPI Index examines multiple indicators to determine poverty rates in a country, including inadequate housing and sanitation facilities, lack of electricity and cooking fuel, malnutrition, and low school attendance.

The report kept last year’s statistics unchanged, with 1.1 billion people experiencing multidimensional poverty out of a global population of 6.1 billion.

Analysing a population of 6.1 billion across 112 countries, the report highlighted that war-torn nations have seen a threefold increase in poverty rates, as 2023 witnessed the highest number of global conflicts since World War II.

“In conflict-affected countries, over one in four poor people lacks access to electricity, compared to just over one in twenty in more stable regions,” the report stated.

Around 40% of the world’s 1.1 billion poor live in countries experiencing armed conflict.

“We need resources and access for specialised development and early recovery interventions to help break the cycle of poverty and crisis,” the UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner said.

The data also revealed that 584 million children under 18, representing 27.9% of the global child population, face acute poverty, compared to 13.5% of adults.

South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are home to 83.2% of the world’s extreme poor.

India topped the rankings with the largest number of individuals living in extreme poverty, accounting for 234 million out of its 1.4 billion population.

Following India, Pakistan, along with African countries such as Ethiopia, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, represent half of the world’s 1.1 billion people living in poverty.