UN poverty index rises for first time since 2010, covering 1.2 billion people — Dawn

The UN Global Multidimensional Poverty Index has increased for the first time since its creation in 2010. The number of people living in acute poverty has reached 1.2 billion, Dawn reports, citing the United Nations Development Programme.

51.5 million more people in poverty

In their 2026 report, the United Nations Development Programme and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative counted 51.5 million more people in acute poverty than a year earlier. More than half of the 1.2 billion people covered by this indicator are children.

United Nations Development Programme Administrator Alexander De Croo called the increase in the indicator “a wake-up call for the world.” According to him, behind the statistics are people who simultaneously face hunger, missed schooling, and a lack of clean water or electricity.

Impact of population growth

The UN noted that population growth was one of the main factors behind the recorded increase. At the same time, new data were available for only 13 of the 108 countries covered by the study.

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The report shows an uneven situation: over the past 15 years, 33 countries have reduced by at least half the share of their population living in poverty under the index’s criteria. They include six countries in sub-Saharan Africa, while the fastest progress among Asian countries was recorded in China and Vietnam.

As last year, the largest numbers of people living in poverty are in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. In Egypt, Nepal and Tajikistan, both the poverty rate and the number of people in multidimensional poverty decreased significantly. In Angola and Zambia, the share of the population living in poverty declined, but population growth outweighed this reduction.

The index takes into account indicators such as a lack of adequate housing, sanitation, electricity, cooking fuel, food and education.