Global Multidimensional Poverty Rose to 1.2 Billion in 2026 — First Increase Since 2010, UN-Oxford Index Shows

The number of people living in acute multidimensional poverty across 108 countries has risen to 1.2 billion, the first increase since the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index was launched in 2010, according to the 2026 update published Monday by the United Nations Development Programme and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative.

The report said 1.2 billion people — 18.9% of the 6.3 billion people represented in the countries covered by the index — are living in acute multidimensional poverty. That is 51.5 million more than in the 2025 update on a like-for-like basis. But the increase does not reflect one single shift: the report said 15.8 million of the rise came from population growth in 95 countries without new surveys, assuming poverty rates stayed the same, while roughly 35.7 million came from changes recorded in the 13 countries with new surveys and from differences in indicator coverage.

Children account for a striking share of those affected. The report said 617 million children are living in multidimensional poverty, equal to 51.5% of all people counted as poor. Poverty is also concentrated outside cities, with about 83% of the poor — roughly 998 million people — living in rural areas. Nearly half of those counted as poor, or 534 million people, are classified as severely poor, meaning they are deprived in at least half of the index’s indicators. Another 952 million people are classified as vulnerable, facing meaningful deprivations without crossing the poverty threshold.

Sub-Saharan Africa carries the largest burden by far. The region accounts for about 616 million people living in multidimensional poverty, with a poverty incidence of about 51.4%, according to the update. Nigeria illustrates the scale of deterioration seen in some newly updated countries: The report said it recorded the largest absolute increase, with 17.9 million more people becoming multidimensionally poor between 2021 and 2024. It listed about 90.07 million people in multidimensional poverty in Nigeria in 2024, with an incidence of 38.7%.

The MPI is not a measure of income poverty. Instead, it identifies people as multidimensionally poor if they are deprived in at least one-third of 10 indicators across health, education and living standards, including nutrition, school attendance, years of schooling, sanitation, drinking water and electricity. The 1.2 billion figure is an estimate for the 108 countries covered by the index, based on household survey data, not a direct count of everyone in the world, and some country estimates rely on older surveys.

“The rise in poverty should be a wake-up call for the world. Behind these figures are 1.2 billion people facing hardships that reinforce one another: hunger, missed schooling and a lack of clean water or electricity. This is unacceptable. But it does not have to be this way. We know progress is possible. Countries that have tackled these challenges together, rather than in isolation, have shown what determined action can achieve,” UNDP Administrator Alexander De Croo said in a press release.

The update also pointed to evidence that reversals are not inevitable: 33 countries have halved their MPI values in fewer than 15 years, showing that rapid progress remains possible even after this year’s setback.