113.3m Nigerians Poor as Country Records World’s Biggest Increase

Nigeria recorded the world’s largest increase in the number of people living in acute multidimensional poverty between 2021 and 2024.

Approximately 17.9 million people have fallen into poverty, as nearly half of the country’s population, or 113.3 million people, now face overlapping deprivations in health, education and living standards.

The figures are contained in the 2026 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index statistical update released on Monday by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI).

The report, based on Nigeria’s 2024 Demographic and Health Survey, said 48.7 per cent of the population lived in acute multidimensional poverty, highlighting the scale of the country’s development challenges and the reversal of earlier progress.

The chart shows how Nigeria's multidimensional poverty figures compare with those of other Sub-Saharan African nations — The chart shows how Nigeria’s multidimensional poverty figures compare with those of other Sub-Saharan African nations

“In absolute terms, the largest increase in the number of poor people is seen in Nigeria, where although poverty had decreased in the previous period (2018–2021), in the recent period (2021–2024), 17.9 million people became multidimensionally poor, followed by 5.3 million in Afghanistan,” the report stated.

The increase reversed the decline recorded between 2018 and 2021, when Nigeria made progress in reducing multidimensional poverty.

The latest figures indicate that the gains were not sustained, with millions more people experiencing multiple forms of deprivation over the subsequent three years.

Pinnacle Daily reports that unlike income-based poverty measures, the Multidimensional Poverty Index assesses whether people lack several basic necessities at the same time.

These include access to education, healthcare, clean water, electricity and other essential living conditions.

Nigeria’s national MPI value stood at 0.269, almost identical to the Sub-Saharan African average of 0.270. Its poverty incidence of 48.7 per cent was below the regional average of 51.4 per cent, but the intensity of deprivation among poor Nigerians was higher.

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The report put Nigeria’s deprivation intensity at 55.1 per cent, compared with 52.6 per cent across Sub-Saharan Africa.

This means Nigerians classified as poor experience, on average, a wider range of overlapping disadvantages than poor people across the region.

It also found that 28.7 per cent of Nigeria’s population lived in severe multidimensional poverty, meaning they were deprived in at least half of the weighted indicators used in the assessment. Another 18.1 per cent were vulnerable to falling into multidimensional poverty.

Nigeria’s large population further increases the scale of the problem.

The country accounts for 113.3 million of the 616.3 million people living in multidimensional poverty across Sub-Saharan Africa, or nearly one in every five poor people in the region.

The report also identified education and health as major contributors to Nigeria’s poverty burden.

Standard-of-living deprivation accounted for 40.6 per cent of the country’s overall multidimensional poverty, while education contributed 30.6 per cent and health 28.8 per cent.

The pattern differs from the wider Sub-Saharan African region, where standard-of-living deprivation accounted for 48.5 per cent of multidimensional poverty, education 22.6 per cent and health 18.7 per cent.

The figures suggest that beyond inadequate infrastructure and basic services, shortcomings in education and health account for a substantial share of the disadvantages experienced by poor Nigerians.

The national figures also conceal sharp differences among states.

The report put subnational MPI values between 0.014 in areas with the lowest poverty levels, including Lagos, and 0.557 in states with the highest levels, including Yobe and Sokoto. Poverty incidence across subnational regions ranged from 3.7 per cent to 88.3 per cent.

The chart breaks down how deprivations in Health, Education, and Living Standards specifically compare between Nigeria and the broader Sub-Saharan African region.

It further noted that states with similarly high poverty levels can face different underlying problems. In Yobe, nutrition and child mortality contributed more to poverty, while in Sokoto, inadequate access to clean water and electricity played a stronger role.

“Compare, for example, the poorest subnational regions of Nigeria: Yobe and Sokoto, which have similar MPI values. Deprivations in nutrition and child mortality contribute more to poverty in Yobe, while in Sokoto, deprivations in water and electricity are stronger contributors,” the report stated.

Nigeria’s poverty incidence was close to those of Angola at 49.3 per cent and Rwanda at 48.8 per cent, but substantially higher than Ghana’s 24.8 per cent and Kenya’s 25.4 per cent. The report also noted that six Sub-Saharan African countries had halved their MPI values in less than 15 years.

For Nigeria, the rise of 17.9 million poor people in three years underscores the difficulty of sustaining poverty reduction and improving living conditions at scale, even as the report shows that the challenge extends beyond the number of people classified as poor to the severity and combination of disadvantages they face.