Nigeria has overtaken India as the country with the largest number of people living in extreme poverty, a report by Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization in USA, has revealed.
The report, titled ‘The Start of a New Poverty Narrative’, says Nigeria has now taken over as the nation with the highest number of extremely poor people in the world, while the Republic of Congo is also rising as the second poorest in the world.
According to the report, extreme poverty in Nigeria is growing by six people every minute, the highest number in the world.
India on the other hand, is witnessing a decline in its level of extreme poverty.
At the end of May (2018), the survey showed that Nigeria had an estimated 87 million people in extreme poverty, compared to India’s 73 million.
The report further stated that in Africa, D.R Congo may soon overtake India as number two, while Africa may be home to additional 3.2 million people living in extreme poverty by the end of 2018.
With the report, the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) to end extreme poverty by 2030 may be unattainable even as Africa faces major population increase.
According to the UN, By 2050 around 2.2 billion people could be added to the global population and more than half of that growth will come from Africa.
It also predicts that Nigeria will become the world’s third largest country by then.
The World Poverty Clock report further states that of the 10 countries on this extreme poverty list, only Ethiopia is on track to meet the United Nations’ SDG of ending extreme poverty by 2030.
It also says outside the top 10, only Ghana and Mauritania are on track with the target.
See the list of top 10 extremely poor countries below:
Nigeria leads with 86.9 million people and is closely followed by D.R Congo with 60.9 million people.
Ethiopia is next with 23.9 million people, followed by Tanzania with 19.9 million.
Mozambique comes next with 17.8 million while Kenya has 14.7 million people living in extreme poverty.
The least four are Uganda, South Africa, South Sudan and Zambia with 14.2, 13.8, 11.4 and 9.5 respectively.
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