Nigeria, two others have 43% of world’s poorest people – World Bank

The World Bank has said that 43 per cent of the world's poorest people reside in Nigeria alongside two other countries.

The apex bank warned on Tuesday that poverty rate is expected to worsen this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

It said three countries (India – 24%, Nigeria – 12%, DR Congo – 7%) with the highest shares of the world’s extremely poor are not projected to grow faster than their population, meaning that extreme poverty will remain at the elevated 2020 levels through 2021.

The projection came after the Washington-based development lender said Monday the pandemic could drive between 70 and 100 million people into extreme poverty in 2020 as the global economy faces its worst recession in 80 years.

Before the pandemic, extreme poverty – defined as living on $1.90 per day – had been decreasing.

The bank expects growth to rebound by four per cent in 2021.

“Nigeria, India and the Democratic Republic of Congo — three countries which we project are home to more than a third of the world’s poor – are predicted to have per-capita growth rates in real GDP of –0.8 per cent, 2.1 per cent and 0.3 per cent, respectively.

“With population growth rates of 2.6 per cent, 1.0 per cent and 3.1 per cent, this is hardly enough for sustainable decreases in the poverty headcount,” the World Bank said in a blog.

The bank warned “South Asia may see a larger increase in the number of poor as a result of COVID-19,” particularly in India.

Of the 176 million people expected to be pushed below the $3.20 per day poverty line, two-thirds are in South Asia.

Punch