Multidimensional poverty rose globally for the first time since 2010 - UN
The number of people living in multidimensional poverty has increased for the first time since 2010. Updated estimates put it at 1.2 billion people, up by 51.5 million compared to the previous study.
This is according to the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2026 report, released on October 12 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) jointly with the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative.
The increase was recorded for the first time since the global Multidimensional Poverty Index was launched in 2010. The study covers 108 countries, home to 6.3 billion people, or about 78% of the world's population.
Researchers estimate that 18.9% of the population of these countries are in multidimensional poverty. More than half of them - 617 million people - are children. Another distinctive feature: 83% of people living in such conditions reside in rural areas.
Unlike the traditional income-based definition of poverty, the multidimensional index takes into account several aspects of life simultaneously. Among them: access to education, healthcare, adequate nutrition, clean drinking water, electricity and proper housing conditions.
A person is classified as multidimensionally poor if their household is deprived in at least one-third of the weighted indicators of the index, which covers ten indicators across three dimensions: health, education and living standards.
At the same time, UNDP emphasizes that the increase in the number of poor is partly explained by demographic changes. In 95 countries where no new surveys were conducted this year, revised population estimates added 15.8 million people to the total figure. The rest of the growth is attributable to changes in poverty prevalence, demographic processes and differences between surveys.
Among the 13 countries for which data were updated, the situation proved uneven. In Egypt, Nepal and Tajikistan both the share and the absolute number of people in multidimensional poverty decreased. In Angola and Zambia, the share of poor population also fell, but because of population growth the total number of such people increased.
By contrast, in Nigeria the positive trend of the previous decade reversed: in the 2020s both the poverty rate and the number of people affected began to rise.
Despite the overall deterioration of global indicators, individual countries demonstrated significant progress. Among 89 states with available trend data, 33 managed to halve their Multidimensional Poverty Index value in less than 15 years.
The most notable results were shown by Eswatini, where over 15 years the share of the population in multidimensional poverty fell from 38.7% to 8%. China halved its index value in four years, and Vietnam in seven.
UNDP Administrator Alexander De Croo said that rising poverty should serve as a warning signal to the global community. In his words, overcoming the problem requires comprehensive solutions, as malnutrition, lack of education and limited access to basic services reinforce each other.
One of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN remains halving the share of people living in poverty in all its forms by 2030. The results of the new study indicate that achieving this goal remains a difficult task.