NEW YORK / RankWire.AI / – Global multidimensional poverty has risen for the first time since the measure began in 2010, reaching 1.2 billion people across 108 countries. The 2026 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index covers 6.3 billion people and finds 18.9% live in acute multidimensional poverty. The latest total is 51.5 million higher than the previous update on a like-for-like basis. UNDP Administrator Alexander De Croo called the increase a “wake-up call for the world.” The index tracks overlapping deprivations in health, education and living standards rather than income alone.
The United Nations Development Programme and Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative produced the latest statistical update. Their index measures 10 indicators, including nutrition, schooling, sanitation, drinking water, electricity, housing and household assets. It also considers child mortality, school attendance and cooking fuel. A person qualifies as multidimensionally poor when deprivations reach at least one-third of the index’s weighted indicators. The framework gives policymakers a wider view of hardship than a single income threshold can provide.
Children account for more than half of the people living in multidimensional poverty. About 617 million children fall within the measure, equal to 51.5% of the global total. Nearly one in three children covered by the index lives in multidimensional poverty. Rural communities carry an even larger share of the burden. About 83% of all multidimensionally poor people live in rural areas, where gaps in basic services remain concentrated across many countries in the dataset.
Sub-Saharan Africa carries the largest burden
Sub-Saharan Africa has 616 million people living in multidimensional poverty, the highest total among world regions. That figure equals 51.4% of the region’s population covered by the index. The 2026 update also includes new survey data from 13 countries and subnational estimates for 1,360 regions across 100 countries. In 95 countries without new survey data, updated population estimates added 15.8 million people to the number counted as multidimensionally poor this year.
Country results show both setbacks and measurable progress. Egypt, Nepal and Tajikistan recorded significant declines in both their poverty rates and the number of people affected. Angola and Zambia reduced their poverty shares, but population growth left the absolute number of poor people higher. Nigeria moved in the opposite direction after earlier gains during the 2010s. Its poverty rate and the number of people living in multidimensional poverty increased in the latest trend data.
Thirty-three countries halve multidimensional poverty
Longer-term data show that sharp reductions remain possible across different regions and income levels. Among 89 countries with trend data, 33 cut their MPI value by half in fewer than 15 years. Six of those countries are in Sub-Saharan Africa. Eswatini reduced its multidimensional poverty rate from 38.7% to 8.0%. China recorded the fastest halving among countries with available data, while Viet Nam halved its MPI value within seven years.
The 2026 findings also underline the distinction between multidimensional poverty and income-based extreme poverty. The MPI measures simultaneous shortages in essential aspects of daily life, while income poverty uses a monetary threshold. The new report therefore does not mean 1.2 billion people live below the global extreme-poverty income line. Instead, it shows that more than one billion people face overlapping disadvantages across basic needs, with children and rural populations accounting for the largest shares.