India's Extreme Poor Decrease From 125 Million In 2016 To 73 Million People In 2018: Study

A new study shows that Nigeria has the largest number of poor people in the world, overtaking India which was previously ranked first. The study was published by US-based think tank Brookings.

The study, titled “The start of a new poverty narrative” in the Future Development blog of the World Bank’s Brookings Institute is authored by Homi Kharas, Kristofer Hamel and Martin Hofer. Nigeria with 87 million people living in extreme poverty, has overtaken India which has 73 million people. The report also said that the Democratic Republic of Congo could soon take the second place, pushing India further down to the third position.

The study notes, “What is more, extreme poverty in Nigeria is growing by six people every minute, while poverty in India continues to fall.”

The detailed methodology behind these projections can be found here. Basically, people living below the threshold of $1.90 per day in 2011 PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) terms are said to be living under extreme poverty.

The report also said that much is not being done to reduce poverty in African countries. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which were formally introduced on January 1, 2016, aims at bringing the extreme poverty to zero. Between 2016 and 2018, about 83 million have escaped from extreme poverty. The report says that when SDGs was implemented, there were 725 million people under extreme poverty and it was needed that 1.5 people are pulled out of extreme poverty every second to achieve the goal, however, we have been moving at the rate of only 1.1 people per second.