Do you know the five countries where half of the world’s poor live in?

Data

I have a quiz for you. Half of the world’s poor live in just five countries. Can you guess the five countries?

Consider the quiz for 30 seconds before reading thereafter.

The following five countries are listed. The number in the parenthesis represents the percentage among the world’s poor in 2015.

  1. India (24%)
  2. Nigeria (12%)
  3. Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) (7%)
  4. Ethiopia (4%)
  5. Bangladesh (3%)

The graph below is the total distribution. It shows that only two regions, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, account for almost half of the world’s poor. India alone covers 24% of this population.

Source: World Bank

So, will this situation continue in South Asia and Africa in the future? The answer is yes and no. The graph below is the prediction of the number of poor individuals by country until 2030. It is interesting that South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa show completely different trends.

This graph indicates that while the numbers of poor in three African countries (Nigeria, Ethiopia, and DRC) are predicted to increase or stay stagnant until 2030, those in South Asia, especially India, are predicted to diminish drastically.

The world in 2030 may be a completely different place compared to the current economic distribution map.

If you are surprised by this article, I recommend that you read the book below. This book has a bunch of facts that people misunderstand.

Last but not least, the data source of this article is from the World Bank report.

Half of the world’s poor live in just 5 countries
Of the world’s 736 million extreme poor in 2015, 368 million lived in just 5 countries. The 5 countries with the highest number of extreme poor are: India, Nige...
blogs.worldbank.org

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