The World Bank has expressed serious concern over the growing rates of extreme poverty in Nigeria and 38 other countries struggling with conflict and deep instability, warning that these conditions are worsening hunger and derailing global development efforts.
In a report released on Friday titled “Extreme Poverty is Rising Fast in Economies Hit by Conflict, Instability”, the Bank revealed that poverty is intensifying in fragile states long after much of the world has begun recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.
World Bank lists fragile countries
Nigeria is among the 39 countries the World Bank categorises as Fragile and Conflict-Affected Situations — a list that includes Afghanistan, Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Haiti, Venezuela, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“These countries include both those experiencing active conflict and others facing deep instability,” the report noted.
In Nigeria, escalating insecurity, including insurgency in the northeast and widespread kidnappings and banditry in the northwest, has been identified as a key contributor to the country’s fragility.
The Bank found that while other developing nations are seeing economic growth post-pandemic, fragile states are moving in the opposite direction.
“Since 2020, their per capita GDP has shrunk by an average of 1.8 per cent per year, while expanding by 2.9 per cent in other developing economies,” the report stated.
According to the findings, over 421 million people in conflict-affected countries currently survive on less than $3 a day — more than the total in all other parts of the world combined. That figure is projected to rise to 435 million by 2030, representing nearly 60% of the world’s extremely poor.
While global attention has been fixated on the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, the World Bank emphasised that Africa continues to suffer the most.
“More than 70% of people suffering from conflict and instability are Africans,” the report said.
“Untreated, these conditions become chronic. Half of the countries facing conflict or instability today have been in such conditions for 15 years or more.”
Indermit Gill, Chief Economist of the World Bank Group, warned that such widespread suffering has ripple effects:
“Misery on this scale is inevitably contagious.”
The report also highlighted how extreme poverty is now largely concentrated in places where progress is hardest to achieve.
“In countries facing conflict or instability, the extreme poverty rate stands at nearly 40%, compared to just six percent in other developing economies,” it said.
Worryingly, the report revealed that employment opportunities in these fragile states have not kept pace with growing populations.
“In 2022, more than 270 million people were of working age in these economies—but barely half of them were employed,” it added.
