United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has said Nigeria’s multidimensional poverty rate increased to 38.7 per cent in 2024 from 33 per cent in 2021, with an additional 17.9 million people falling into poverty during the period.
Gatekeepers News reports that the figures were contained in the 2026 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index report, published on Monday by the UNDP in collaboration with the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) at the University of Oxford.
According to the report, the number of Nigerians living in multidimensional poverty rose from 72.2 million in 2021 to 90.1 million in 2024, representing the largest increase among five countries that recorded worsening poverty over their latest measurement periods.
Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Guinea and Kyrgyzstan were the other countries that experienced increases.
The report noted that the latest figures reversed the progress Nigeria had made in reducing multidimensional poverty between 2018 and 2021.
It said the proportion of Nigerians affected declined from 42.3 per cent in 2013 to 37.2 per cent in 2018 and 33 per cent in 2021 before rising to 38.7 per cent in 2024.
The multidimensional poverty index value also increased from 0.175 in 2021 to 0.208 in 2024, while the intensity of deprivation among affected Nigerians rose from 52.9 per cent to 53.6 per cent.
Unlike conventional poverty measures that focus mainly on income or expenditure, multidimensional poverty assesses the overlapping disadvantages people experience in their daily lives across health, education and living standards.
Its indicators include nutrition, child mortality, years of schooling, school attendance, access to electricity and clean drinking water, sanitation, housing, cooking fuel and household assets.
A person is classified as multidimensionally poor when their household experiences deprivation in at least one-third of the weighted indicators.
The report highlighted significant disparities in poverty levels across Nigeria, with the incidence ranging from 3.7 per cent to 88.3 per cent across the subnational regions covered by the analysis.
It also noted that the types of deprivation experienced by communities could differ even where their overall poverty levels were similar, underscoring the need for policies tailored to specific local conditions.
Globally, the report estimated that 1.2 billion people across 108 countries were living in acute multidimensional poverty, representing 18.9 per cent of the population covered by the index.
Sub-Saharan Africa recorded the highest regional burden, with 616 million people, or 51.4 per cent of its population, affected.
The report further found that 83.3 per cent of the world’s multidimensionally poor population lived in rural areas, while children accounted for 617 million, or 51.5 per cent, of those experiencing deprivation.
UNDP said the findings highlighted the need for renewed efforts to address overlapping disadvantages and sustain progress towards the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal of reducing poverty in all its dimensions by 2030.
It also noted that progress remained possible, as 33 countries with comparable data had reduced their multidimensional poverty index values by at least half in fewer than 15 years.
