The World Bank has projected that the number of poor people in Nigeria and other Sub-Saharan African countries can hit 463.6 million in 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing war in Ukraine.
The projection was made through research by a group of World Bank economists, with the findings published on the World Bank blog page under the title ‘Pandemic, prices, and poverty.”
Using a graph, the World Bank showed that the baseline projection for poor people in Sub-Saharan Africa is 460.4 million, while the pessimistic projection is N463.6 million in 2022.
Explaining the projections, the World Bank said, “Extreme poverty is measured as the number of people living on less than $1.90 per day. Baseline and pessimistic projections utilize growth forecasts from April 2022 Macro and Poverty Outlooks. The baseline scenario distributes the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, rising inflation, and the conflict in Ukraine equally to all households. The pessimistic scenario includes the disproportionate impact of rising food prices on the bottom 40 per cent compared to the top 60 per cent over the baseline scenario.”
The bank said, “The world’s poorest have faced two extraordinarily difficult years. The pandemic has caused unprecedented reversals in poverty reduction that are further exacerbated by rising inflation and the effects of the war in Ukraine.Globally, the bank projected that the pandemic, rising inflation and the war in Ukraine would push about 75 million to 95 million people into extreme poverty in 2022.
“We estimate that these combined crises will lead to an additional 75 million to 95 million people living in extreme poverty in 2022, compared to pre-pandemic projections.
“If the more pessimistic scenario plays out, 2022 could be the second-worst year in terms of progress made in reducing extreme poverty this century—behind only 2020, when there was an actual increase in global poverty.”
