In many countries, more than half of the population faces poverty in multiple dimensions

The experience of poverty goes far beyond having no or low income. Unfortunately, still in many countries today, a large share of people experience severe poverty in many areas of life, such as health, education, and living standards.

To capture this broader reality, researchers from the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative and the UN Development Programme developed the global Multidimensional Poverty Index. This group of indicators measures poverty across essential areas of well-being, capturing whether people are undernourished, whether they lost a child, and lack access to education or basic facilities like clean water or electricity.

The map shows the share of the population in each country living in multidimensional poverty*, *highlighting where households face overlapping deprivations.

In countries across South America and some in East Asia, this share is less than 10%. But in many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, more than half of the people experience these extreme conditions. The share even exceeds 4 in 5 people in Niger (91%), Chad (84%), and the Central African Republic (80%).

These figures are based on data from over 100 countries drawn from household surveys conducted between 2011 and 2023.

Read more on our article: Beyond income: understanding poverty through the Multidimensional Poverty Index →

Where this page came from

This page was imported from Our World in Data. “In many countries, more than half of the population faces poverty in multiple dimensions” by Bertha Rohenkohl, Pablo Arriagada, published by Our World in Data under CC BY 4.0. Changed here: set as a page, its interactive charts shown as pictures. Data from third parties keeps its own licence.

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