More than 1.1 billion people – one in every eight citizens of the planet – live in poverty acute, half of them minors, denounced this Thursday (17) the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), which warns of a situation three times worse in conflict areas.
Acute poverty in conflict zones affects an average of 34.8% of the population, compared to 10.9% in countries at peace, according to the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (IPM) that UNDP and the Oxford Initiative on Poverty and Development Humano have been producing since 2010.
Unlike the World Bankwhich defines extreme poverty as when a person receives a maximum of 2.15 dollars per day (12 reais at the current rate), the IPM is prepared based on indicators such as the lack of adequate housing, sanitation, electricity, cooking fuel , nutrition and schooling.
“IPM 2024 shows a worrying picture”, says the director of statistics for the UNDP Human Development Report, Yanchun Zhang, who warns that of the 1.1 billion multidimensional poor, “455 million live in the shadow of conflicts”.
“In war-torn nations, poverty rates are three times higher than in more peaceful environments. The deprivations people face – whether in terms of nutrition, water, sanitation, electricity or education – are three to five times more severe,” he told AFP.
“For the poor in conflict-affected countries, the fight for basic needs is a much tougher and more desperate battle,” he added.
In 2023, the planet will record more conflicts than at any time since World War II, the report recalls.
The conclusions of the document, which examines the situation in 112 countries, where 6.3 billion people live, are that poverty affects rural areas more (28%) than urban areas (6.6%); that young people under the age of 18 are more affected (27.9%) than adults (13.5%) and that the majority (83.2%) of the world’s poor live in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia .
The five countries with the highest poverty levels are India (234 million), Pakistan (93 million), Ethiopia (86 million), Nigeria (74 million) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (66 million).
In Latin America, 5.8% of the population (34 million) suffers from multidimensional poverty. Haiti leads the region’s list, with 41.3% of the population in acute poverty, followed by Guatemala with 28.9%.
For Sabina Alkire, director of the Oxford Initiative, wars and conflicts not only leave “deep and lasting scars on lives in many ways”, but also “make it difficult to reduce poverty”.
“This presents the international community with the inevitable challenge of focusing on reducing poverty and promoting lasting peace,” he said.
