UN: About half of the world's population living below the poverty line is in conflict-ridden countries

Photo: Palestinians in the city of Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip

More than a billion people in the world live in extreme poverty, with about half of them in countries affected by armed conflict, according to the Multidimensional Poverty Index report, prepared by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Initiative on Poverty and Human Development at Oxford University, Voice of America reports.

The publication of the report was timed to coincide with the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, which took place on October 17.

“The Multidimensional Poverty Index has been published since 2010,” and this year the study is based on statistics from 112 countries.

Multidimensional poverty is understood as not only a lack of resources, but also a lack of access to basic services, including health care, education, and living standards. The latter category includes indicators such as access to water, electricity, cooking fuel, and others. A total of 10 indicators are taken into account.

The surveys calculate the so-called deprivation score of an individual or household, which ranges from 0 to 1, and the higher it is, the higher the poverty level is considered. According to the authors, this methodology complements the purely monetary definition of poverty (for example, the IMF classifies as poor people whose income does not exceed $ 2.15 a day).

The authors of the report came to the conclusion that 1.1 billion people live in extreme multidimensional poverty, of which 455 million live in countries affected by conflict or instability. At the same time, in such countries, poverty reduction is usually the slowest.

Countries affected by war experience higher deprivation on all indicators of multidimensional poverty, including lack of access to electricity, clean water and sanitation, education and nutritious food.

The report says that more than half of the “multidimensionally” of the world's poor, 584 million, are children under 18. Globally, nearly 28% of children live in poverty – for adults, this figure is 13.5%.

Prepared by: Sergey Daga