Violent Conflicts Trap World's Poorest as 1.1 Billion Face Acute Poverty

Violent conflicts have contributed to pushing nearly half a billion people across the globe into acute poverty, and have made it harder for people to find their way out of extreme deprivation, according to a new United Nations report released on Thursday, the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

The U.N. Development Program (UNDP) joined the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) in publishing the latest update of the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), which measures acute poverty in 112 countries that are home to 6.3 billion people—a majority of the global population.

Researchers determined that 1.1 billion people are living in poverty, and 455 million of them are struggling to afford basic necessities while "living in the shadow of conflict."

"Conflicts have intensified and multiplied in recent years, reaching new highs in casualties, displacing record millions of people, and causing widespread disruption to lives and livelihoods," said Achim Steiner, administrator of UNDP.

The new research, he said, "shows that of the 1.1 billion people living in multidimensional poverty, almost half a billion live in countries exposed to violent conflict. We must accelerate action to support them. We need resources and access for specialized development and early recovery interventions to help break the cycle of poverty and crisis."

The communities studied by the groups face persistent deprivation of adequate housing, sanitation, electricity, cooking fuel, nutrition, and education, with well over half of the 1.1 billion poor people in the study facing undernourishment or living with someone who is malnourished.

UNDP and OPHI did find that countries have been able to significantly cut down on poverty in recent years, with 74 countries significantly reducing the incidence of poverty through investment in policies like cash transfer programs, child benefits, and nutritional services.

The index released Thursday showed that roughly 584 people under 18 are now experiencing extreme poverty, accounting for nearly 28% of children worldwide. Comparatively, about 13.5% of adults are living in acute poverty.

"Poverty reduction is slower in conflict settings—so the poor in conflict settings are being left behind."

"Ending child poverty is a policy choice," said the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). "Countries that have made this choice have drastically reduced the number of children growing up in poverty."

India is home to the largest number of people in extreme poverty, affecting 234 million of its population of 1.4 billion people. Nearly half of the world's 1.1 billion poor people live in India, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Steiner emphasized that many countries in the Global South are being suffocated by debt repayments to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, hindering efforts to reduce or eradicate poverty.

"Onerous debt burdens continue to impede progress on tackling poverty in many developing countries," said Steiner. "On average, low-income countries allocate more than twice as much funding to servicing net interest payments as they do to pay for health or education services."

Without accelerating poverty reduction efforts, fewer than 3-in-10 countries are expected to be able to halve poverty rates by the end of the decade.

With nearly half of the world's acute poverty affecting people in conflict zones or countries with "low peacefulness," OPHI director Sabina Alkire warned, "We cannot end poverty without investing in peace."

In countries and territories with protracted conflicts, like South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Yemen, and Gaza, "poverty is not their only struggle," said Alkire.

"In countries at war, over one in three people are poor (34.8 percent) whereas in non-conflict-affected countries it's one in nine (10.9 percent) according to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program," Alkire added. "And sadly, poverty reduction is slower in conflict settings—so the poor in conflict settings are being left behind. These numbers compel a response."

Communities in places with violent conflicts experience "markedly more severe" disparities in nutrition, electricity access, and access to clean water and sanitation, said OPHI.

The index was published as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a global authority on food insecurity, found that 41% of Palestinians in Gaza will face "catastrophic" levels of hunger in the coming months. Independent U.N. experts have already determined that Israel's yearlong assault on Gaza has pushed the enclave into famine.

Famine was declared in a refugee camp in North Darfur, Sudan in August, after more than a year of a civil war that has displaced 10 million people and blocked aid deliveries.

Steiner said that on the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, the U.N. is calling for the consideration of "a neglected dimension of poverty: the social and institutional maltreatment faced by people living in poverty augmented by conflict and lack of peace."

"Whether experienced through negative attitudes, stigma, discrimination, or through the structural violence embedded in institutions, it represents a denial of fundamental human rights," said Steiner. "From unequal access to education, healthcare, social protection, jobs, or legal identity, prejudicial policies that exclude those living in poverty further perpetuate cycles of inequality and exclusion."