Overview
- The 2026 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index counted 51.5 million more people in acute multidimensional poverty for a total of 1.2 billion, a figure published on Monday that marks the first rise in the index since its 2010 launch.
- More than half of those affected are children, about 617 million, and roughly 83 percent live in rural areas where shortages of clean water, power and services deepen overlapping deprivations.
- UNDP and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative attribute much of the net increase to population growth and limited new survey data for this update, with revised population estimates alone adding an estimated 15.8 million people in countries without fresh surveys.
- Country snapshots show uneven trends: Kenya’s 2022 profile records 25.4 percent of people as multidimensionally poor (about 13.75 million) while other countries have cut poverty rates even as population growth raised the absolute number of poor in places such as Angola and Zambia.
- The MPI uses ten weighted indicators across health, education and living standards to reveal simultaneous deprivations and the report says targeted, coordinated services and stronger social protection are needed to reverse the rise and keep the 2030 goal within reach.