India no longer has the largest number of people living in extreme poverty

The Times of India
Tue, 26 Jun 2018 18:51 UTC

© desconocido

The good news is that India is steadily moving down the poverty index. Nigeria overtook India as the country with the largest number of extreme poor and at end of May 2018, Nigeria had about 87 million people living in extreme poverty, as compared with India's 73 million, according to a recent report Brookings.

EXTREME POVERTY IS DROPPING IN INDIA, BUT ON THE RISE ELSEWHERE

© Brookings

India is moving down in global poverty rankings

POORER BY THE DOZEN

Extreme poverty in Nigeria is growing by 12 people every two minutes, or six every minute. Bit in India, it is on a decline with close to 44 Indians escaping extreme poverty every minute, as per the World Poverty Clock. Currently, 5.3 per cent of Indians live in extreme poverty but the country is well on its way of ending this by meeting its sustainable development goals by 2030.

AFRICA'S WOES

With 14 of the 18 countries in the world, where the number of extremely poor people are rising, being in Africa, the number of poor in the continent will see an increase equivalent to the population of Pune, with an addition of 3.2 million people by the end of 2018. Unlike India, several countries are falling behind targets in meeting their sustainable development goals. This means that global goals on eradicating extreme poverty will need to be revisited with a focus on helping Africa.