86.9m in Extreme Poverty as Nigeria overtakes India, becomes world’s poverty capital

Nigeria has now taken over as the nation with the highest number of extremely poor people, a report by Brookings Institution has shown.

Before now, India used to hold the position with a population of 1.324 billion people as against Nigeria’s 200 million.

According to the report, the number of Nigerians in extreme poverty increases by six people every minute.

“According to our projections, Nigeria has already overtaken India as the country with the largest number of extreme poor in early 2018, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo could soon take over the number 2 spot,” it read.

“At the end of May 2018, our trajectories suggest that Nigeria had about 87 million people in extreme poverty, compared with India’s 73 million. What is more, extreme poverty in Nigeria is growing by six people every minute, while poverty in India continues to fall.

“In fact, by the end of 2018 in Africa as a whole, there will probably be about 3.2 million more people living in extreme poverty than there is today.

“Africans account for about two-thirds of the world’s extreme poor and that If current trends persist, Africa will account for nine-tenths by 2030.

“Fourteen out of 18 countries in the world—where the number of extreme poor is rising—are in Africa.”

In March, the International Monetary Fund had said Nigerians are getting poorer saying there is a need for coherent and comprehensive economic reforms.

The report stated that with the rate people living in extreme poverty is reducing, it’ll be extremely difficult to achieve SDG 1 – No Poverty.

According to Brookings Institute:

Each April and October, the World Poverty Clock data are updated to take into account new household surveys (an additional 97 surveys were made available this April) and new projections on country economic growth from the International Monetary Funds’s World Economic Outlook. These form the basic building blocks for poverty trajectories computed for 188 countries and territories, developed and developing, across the world.

See the top nations below:

Nigeria – 86.9m

India – 71.5m

Democratic Republic of Congo – 60.9m

Ethiopia – 23.9m

Tanzania – 19.9m

Mozambique – 17.8m

Bangladesh – 17m

Kenya – 14.7m

Indonesia – 14.2m

Uganda – 14.2m

Photo Credit: Brookings Institute