COVID-19 to add as many as 150 mln extreme poor by 2021, Islamic countries included
Global extreme poverty is expected to rise in 2020 for the first time in over 20 years as the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic compounds the forces of conflict and climate change, the World Bank said in a report released on Wednesday (Oct 7).
According to the report, extreme poverty is likely to affect between 9.1% and 9.4% of the world’s population in 2020. Poverty reduction was slowing before the COVID-19 crisis, when experts expected the rate dropping to 7.9% in 2020.
“The pandemic and global recession may cause over 1.4% of the world’s population to fall into extreme poverty,” World Bank Group President David Malpass said, launching the biennial Poverty and Shared Prosperity Report.
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