Nigeria tops global extreme poverty list with 73.1 million people – THIS UPDATE

According to 2026 estimates from the World Data Lab, Nigeria has more people living in extreme poverty than any other country in the world. However, the evaluation is based on the number and not on the poverty rate.

The World Poverty Clock estimates the number to be around 73.1 million Nigerians, slightly ahead of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where 71.6 million people are estimated to live in extreme poverty.

The difference between the two countries is only 1.5 million people.

Afghanistan comes in third place with 35.2 million people, less than half Nigeria’s figure, while Mozambique and Yemen round out the top five with 25 million and 24.2 million respectively.

According to data attributed to the World Data Lab, the 2026 ranking is:

1. Nigeria – 73.1 million

2. Democratic Republic of Congo: 71.6 million

3. Afghanistan: 35.2 million

4. Mozambique – 25 million

5. Yemen – 24.2 million

6. Tanzania – 23.9 million

7. Madagascar – 20.1 million

8. Uganda – 18.2 million

9. India: 14.46 million

10. Ethiopia – 14.3 million

The ranking also shows how heavily concentrated extreme poverty is in Africa today.

Seven of the 10 countries are African, including the top two. Afghanistan, Yemen and India are the only countries outside the continent to make the list.

World Data Lab’s World Poverty Clock uses economic and demographic data to model poverty levels in different countries and update estimates over time. The organization says its underlying data comes from recognized institutions including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations, while its forecasts are updated as new economic and demographic information becomes available.

Having the largest number of people in the world living in extreme poverty does not mean that Nigeria has the highest poverty rate in the world.

Nigeria’s much larger population means it may have more people in extreme poverty than smaller countries where a larger proportion of citizens live below the poverty line.

According to available data from the World Poverty Clock, Nigeria’s extremely poor population stands at approximately 73.1 million, or approximately 31% of the country’s population. Other countries, including some with smaller populations, have higher proportions even if their absolute numbers of poor are lower.

This distinction is particularly important because different poverty data for Nigeria often circulate together despite measuring different things.

For example, the National Bureau of Statistics estimated in 2022 that 133 million Nigerians were multidimensionally poor.

This figure measures deprivation in areas such as health, education, living standards, employment and exposure to shocks. It therefore cannot be directly compared to the World Data Lab’s estimate of people living in extreme monetary poverty.

Similarly, the World Bank revised its international extreme poverty benchmark in June 2025 from $2.15 per day in 2017 purchasing power parity terms to $3 per day using the 2021 PPP. The change also resulted in substantial revisions to global poverty estimates.

Consequently, poverty data from different institutions or years should be compared only after establishing the poverty threshold, purchasing power methodology and type of deprivation to be measured.

Even with these methodological differences, it is difficult not to notice the geographic concentration.

Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Tanzania, Madagascar, Uganda and Ethiopia all appear in the global top 10.

Meanwhile, the World Bank has repeatedly identified sub-Saharan Africa as the region in which extreme poverty is increasingly concentrated. When it updated the international poverty line in 2025, the Bank estimated that methodological revisions added around 111 million people to the extreme poverty count in sub-Saharan Africa alone.

Nigeria’s latest position is therefore part of a much broader continental problem.

However, its first place position gives the problem an unusual scope.

For every statistic about falling inflation, rising GDP, strengthening markets, or expanding government revenues, an estimated 73.1 million people living at the bottom of the income distribution provide another measure of how much of that economic progress is reaching ordinary families.

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