Poverty Around the World

Approximately 719 million people in the world live in extreme poverty and make less than $2.15 a day. Source

One in every 6 children lives in extreme poverty, and the negative effects of poverty and deprivation in the early years have ramifications that can last a lifetime. Source

The 719 million people living in extreme poverty struggle to fulfill the most basic needs like health, education, and access to clean water and sanitation.
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In nine Southern African countries, more than 11 million people, most living in poverty, are experiencing crisis or emergency levels of food insecurity due to deepening drought and other severe weather events. Source

In Haiti, 5.2 million people living in poverty need urgent humanitarian support, including nearly 3 million children, due to food insecurity, rampant gang violence, and natural disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes. Source

In the Philippines, nearly a quarter of a million adult Filipinos trafficked children to produce new child sexual exploitation material in 2022. Most of the children live in poverty and are exploited to make money. Source

In Central American countries, gang violence, food insecurity, and climate change are pushing hundreds of thousands of people each year to flee to another country, like the United States. Source

About 13,800 kids younger than 5 die every day, mostly from preventable, treatable illnesses like pneumonia, diarrhea, and malaria. Source

An estimated 2.1 million children and youths ages 5–24 died in 2021 alone; 43% of those deaths occurred in the adolescent period, ages 10–19. Source

The average risk of dying between age 5 and age 24 in sub-Saharan Africa was over 10 times higher than in the Western Europe region, which has the lowest mortality rate for 5–24-year-olds. Source

About 48% of deaths to children and youths ages 5–24 occurred in sub-Saharan Africa, followed by South Asia with about 23%. Source

Approximately 1 billion children (nearly half of the world’s children) live in extremely high-risk countries. Source

Over 1 billion children are at extremely high risk of the impacts of the climate crisis. These crises will not affect everyone equally — children will suffer more than adults, with those in the poorest communities bearing the biggest burden. Source

Over 99% of children globally are exposed to at least one of the climate and environmental stresses such as water scarcity, flooding, disease exposure, and air pollution. Source

Due to rising temperatures, the habitat for mosquitoes that transmit malaria, dengue fever, and yellow fever is projected to almost certainly expand, which takes a greater toll on communities already suffering greatly from these diseases. Source

Nearly 34 million more people, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, are expected to be pushed into extreme poverty due to increased food prices caused by lower crop yields. Source

One billion people, or 15% of the world’s population, have a disability and are more likely to experience adverse socioeconomic outcomes than people without disabilities. Source

Ninety percent of children with disabilities in developing countries do not attend school. Source

Nearly 240 million children have disabilities — 1 in 10 of all children worldwide. Source

Compared with children without disabilities, children with disabilities are 41% more likely to feel discriminated against; 49% more likely to have never attended school; 32% more likely to experience severe physical punishment at home; and 51% more likely to consider themselves unhappy. Source

The COVID-19 pandemic led to prolonged school closures, particularly in lower-income countries, and worsened learning inequality among children. In poorer communities, kids have suffered even larger learning losses. Source

Learning poverty has increased by a third in low- and middle-income countries, with an estimated 70% of 10-year-olds unable to understand a simple written text. Source

Worldwide, nearly 90% of children attend primary school, but that number drops to 74% in poor households. Source

In West and Central Africa, less than 30% of the children from the poorest households complete primary education. Source

Between 691 and 783 million people faced hunger in 2022. Source

Over 122 million more people are facing hunger in the world since 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, repeated weather shocks, and conflicts. Source

The capacity of people to access healthy diets has deteriorated across the world: More than 3.1 billion people in the world — or 42% — were unable to afford a healthy diet in 2021. This represents an overall increase of 134 million people compared to 2019. Source

Millions of children under 5 continue to suffer from malnutrition: In 2022, 148 million children under age 5 (22.3%) were stunted, 45 million (6.8%) were wasted, and 37 million (5.6%) were overweight. Source

Around the world, 160 million children ages 5–17 are involved in child labor. Source

Unfortunately, huge challenges still remain in sub-Saharan Africa, where 1 in 4 children are involved in child labor. Source

In the world’s poorest countries, slightly more than 1 in 5 children are engaged in work that is potentially harmful to their health. Source

In all regions, boys and girls are equally likely to be involved in child labor. However, gender disparities are often observed in the types of activities carried out, with girls far more likely to be involved in unpaid household services. Source

Approximately 650 million women and girls alive today were married before their 18th birthday. Source

Primary education provides the foundation for a lifetime of learning. Most countries have achieved gender parity in primary enrollment, but in many countries, disparities disadvantaging girls persist. Source

In countries that have not reached parity, particularly in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, girls are more likely to be disadvantaged than boys. In Chad and Pakistan, for example, the GPI value is 0.78 and 0.84 respectively, meaning that 78 girls in Chad and 84 girls in Pakistan are enrolled in primary school for every 100 boys. Source

In most countries with water off premises, the burden of water collection disproportionately falls on women. Source

Inadequate drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) pose critical health risks to all children, but have additional implications for the health, psychosocial well-being, and mobility of women and girls. Source

When households lack water supplies on their premises, members must spend time and energy collecting water. In sub-Saharan Africa, one round trip to travel to a water source, collect water, and return home takes an average of 33 minutes in rural areas and 25 minutes in urban areas — and often, more than one trip per day is necessary to meet the needs of the household. Source

This is time that could be spent on productive and leisure activities — or in the case of children, on attaining an education. Water collection can also result in injuries, especially to young girls and pregnant women, and expose women and girls to risk of sexual violence while traveling back and forth to the water source. Source

One in 4 children under the age of 5 do not officially exist. These children do not have a birth certificate. This lack of proof of legal identity means they cannot gain access to rights and protections or universal access to social services. Source

In recent years, the United Nations verified 266,000 cases of grave rights violations against children in more than 30 conflict situations across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. Source

Around the world, more than 61 million children do not attend primary school. Source

An estimated 150 million girls and 73 million boys are sexually assaulted every year. Source

In some countries, girls as young as 9 are forced into marriage and children as young as 6 are judged as adults in criminal courts. Source

About 12% of all those in forced labor are children. More than half of these children are in commercial sexual exploitation. Source

Of the 27.6 million people in forced labor, 17.3 million are exploited in the private sector; 6.3 million are in forced commercial sexual exploitation; and 3.9 million are in forced labor imposed by the state. Source

Approximately 49.6 million people were living in modern slavery in 2021, of which 27.6 million were in forced labor and 22 million in forced marriage. Source

The Asia and the Pacific regions have the highest number of people in forced labor (15.1 million) and the Arab States have the highest prevalence (5.3 per 1,000 people). Source

Women and girls account for 4.9 million of those in forced commercial sexual exploitation, and for 6 million of those in forced labor in other economic sectors. Source

More than 2 billion people still lack access to safely managed water services, including 1.5 billion with “basic services,” 292 million with “limited” water, 296 million who used unimproved sources, and 115 million who still collect drinking water directly from rivers, lakes, and other surface water sources. Source

There are pronounced disparities among people who don’t have access to safely managed water sources. The poorest and those living in rural areas are least likely to have access to a basic service. And in most countries, the burden of water collection continues to fall mainly to women and girls. Source

Since 2000, 2.5 billion people have gained access to safely managed sanitation services. Still, in 2022 3.5 billion people lacked safely managed services, of which approximately 1.9 billion had basic services. Source

Among the 1.5 billion people lacking even basic services, 570 million share improved sanitation facilities with other households, and 545 million use “unimproved” facilities, while 419 million practice open defecation. Source

Nine out of 10 people practicing open defecation live in rural areas, and more than 50% of them live in sub-Saharan Africa and Central and Southern Asia. Source

More than half the world’s children — 1 billion children — report having experienced some form of violence in a previous year. Source

In certain cultures, violence may be perceived as a normal and acceptable way to resolve conflict, whether the conflict is personal or regional. Source

In some countries, 40% to 45% of girls and boys ages 15–19 years consider a husband to be justified in hitting or beating his wife for a variety of “infractions,” like burning dinner. Source

In a majority of countries, more than 2 in 3 children are subjected to violent discipline by caregivers. Source

Globally, around 1 in 5 adolescent girls have experienced recent intimate partner violence. Source

Gang violence, political instability, poverty, and increasing natural disasters have resulted in tens of thousands of children and their families fleeing their home countries each year in regions of Central America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia. Source