United Nations: More than one billion people in the world are living in extreme poverty and half of them are children while about 40 such people live in conflict or unstable countries. This information was given in a report released by the United Nations on Thursday. The report released by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative of the University of Oxford said that more than 83 percent of poor people live in rural areas and the same percentage of these people live in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Africa. Live in Asia. The United Nations Development Program and Oxford have been releasing a multi-dimensional poverty index every year since 2010, which is based on 10 indicators including health, education and standard of living. This year’s index analyzed data from 112 countries in which the world’s 6.3 billion population reside.
According to the index, 1.1 billion people are living in extreme poverty, of which almost half are in five countries: India (234 million), Pakistan (93 million), Ethiopia (86 million), Nigeria (74 million) and Congo (66 million). reside.
Most children in poverty
According to the report, almost half of the people living in extreme poverty, i.e. 584 million, are children below 18 years of age. Of them, 317 million people live in Sub-Saharan Africa, while 184 million live in South Asia. According to this, poverty has increased in Afghanistan and the proportion of poor children is even higher at about 59 percent.
UNDP and Oxford said this year’s report focuses on poverty amid conflict, as 2023 saw the highest number of conflicts since World War II and the highest number ever of 117 million people displaced by war, disasters and other factors. Had to leave their homes and get displaced.
What did the United Nations say?
“Combining conflict data with global MPI data for the first time, the report highlights the difficult realities of people who are simultaneously experiencing conflict and poverty,” said Pedro Conceição, Director of the United Nations Development Programme. Are.’
“The shocking thing is that 455 million people who are multidimensionally poor and living in conflict environments are living with severe deprivation of basic needs like nutrition, water and sanitation, electricity and education,” he told The Associated Press. And this deprivation is three to five times more severe than that of the poor in general areas.
Sabina Alkire, director of the Oxford Initiative, said: ‘The MPI can tell which areas are poor and targeted poverty alleviation efforts can be made in those areas. He said, ‘For example, Burkina Faso is under military rule and attacks by extremists have increased there. About two-thirds of the population there is poor.