4 out of 10 poor people worldwide exposed to conflict

Sabina Alkire, Director of Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative in the University of Oxford; Priest in the Anglican Church and Ordinary Academician on the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences reveals statistics on poverty published on the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

17 October – Nearly 40% of the world’s poor live in countries that experience some form of conflict within their borders. We highlight the challenges facing these 455 million poor people in our latest update of the global Multidimensional Poverty Index, which we co-published with the United Nations Development Programme today.

The definition of poverty that we use for our analysis is multidimensional. Instead of defining poverty by income, we track the overlapping deprivations that a household faces across ten poverty indicators relating to health, education and living standards – things like undernutrition, out of school children, and a lack of water, sanitation, electricity or good housing. Out of this data we create an internationally comparable measure of poverty across 112 countries which are home to 6.3 billion people.

As the expanding conflict in the Middle East and the persisting conflict of Ukraine continues to weigh heavily in our minds and prayers, we wanted to focus on how the nightmare of conflict affects people living in poverty. One of our main goals with the global MPI every year is to help inform governments, the private sector, faith-based organisations and other anti-poverty protagonists of how and where poor people live, who the poorest are, and how to support them to exit poverty. This year we also look at poverty in conflict settings. We examine what poverty data tells us about countries where conflict was taking place when the poverty data were collected.

From this analysis we saw that the data pointed to four striking observations:

1. 40% of the world’s poor live in conflict settings.

Across 112 countries we find that 1.1 billion people live in acute multidimensional poverty. This means that these people are deprived in at least a third or more of the possible indicators of poverty that we measure. Nearly 40 percent of these 1.1 billion poor people also live in countries experiencing war, state fragility or low peacefulness according to at least one of three widely used definitions. This statistic (amounting to 455 million people) is a startlingly high proportion of people. They are not only contending with the overlapping burdens of multidimensional poverty but are also facing the instability and challenges of a country in which conflict is taking place within its borders.

2. Poverty is three times higher in countries affected by war compared to peaceful countries.

While national levels vary, overall, in countries affected by war (using conflict definitions from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program – one of the three datasets we use for the study) 34.8 percent of all people live in poverty. This is three times higher than in countries not affected by war or minor conflicts, where 10.9 percent of people are poor. Multidimensional poverty is also more than twice as high in conflict scenarios according to the two other datasets used in the report.

3. In conflict settings, more people are deprived in all ten of the poverty indicators being measured than in non-conflict settings.

On average, in conflict settings according to the UCDP, a higher percentage of the population are poor and are deprived in all 10 of the global MPI indicators compared to other countries. Deprivations in nutrition, electricity, water, and sanitation are particularly high.

For example, in non-conflict-affected countries, 5.6 percent of people – one in 18 – are poor and lack access to electricity. In war-affected countries, this figure jumps to 26.9 percent – over one in four. Similarly, while 4.4 percent of people in non-conflict-affected countries are poor and live with an out of school child (one in 22), this proportion increases to 17.7 percent (over one in six) in war-affected countries.

4. Conflict hinders progress – see the case of Afghanistan

Poverty reduction tends to be the slowest in settings most affected by conflict.  In Afghanistan, we looked at the poverty rate across two points of time for which we had data: 2015/16 and 2022/2023. This period, which had already followed decades of armed conflict, witnessed further waves of violent conflict, and then the takeover of the Taliban. We found that the proportion of people in poverty rose by over 5 percentage points over the period. The increase in poverty may even be underestimated because only 8 of the 10 indicators could be compared, or harmonized, given that data were missing in one year for nutrition and in another year for cooking fuel. In 2022/23 nearly two-thirds of Afghans were poor (64.9 percent), and almost three of every five poor people were children.

Over the period of 2015/2016–2022/2023, the educational system in Afghanistan has been disrupted and the outlook of a generation of Afghan children looks bleak. The proportion of Afghans living in poor households with out of school children rose significantly, from 35.0 percent to 43.8 percent. More children are out of school (up to class 8) particularly in rural areas.  Deprivations in the school attendance indicator increased from 42.3 percent to 52.7 percent in rural areas and 12.3 percent to 17.7 percent in urban areas. What might this mean for children growing up in Afghanistan and what might this mean especially for girls barred from going to school beyond year 6 by the de facto authorities since 2021?

The need for peace

Reflecting on the future for Afghan children and for impoverished people around the world exposed to the trauma of conflict, all these numbers compel a response and an enduring resolution: we cannot end poverty without fostering and investing in positive peace.  Sometimes the global landscape seems bleak and hope flickers and most feel very powerless. But whether it is Ireland or Colombia, longstanding conflicts have indeed been brought to peace, in part through wisdom, skill, collective effort, and fierce determination at many levels of society. The current context invites such courageous engagement, both in prayer and in action.

For more on the global MPI report visit here: https://ophi.org.uk/global-mpi/2024

Sabina Alkire is Director of Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative in the University of Oxford, Priest in the Anglican Church and Ordinary Academician on the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.