India is no longer home to the world’s most poor, study says

           “Everybody seems to have their own space under the sun, but the poor.”

For the longest possible time now, it’s been said that the poorest people on the earth belong to India. India may be a tiger economy of Asia, and according to revered financial institutes such as the World Bank, the most bankable economy in the coming years. But there’s no respite for the poor.

Few countries could have as polarised images as India, truthfully speaking. On the one hand, while an image of luxury sedans, running on sprawling wide roads amid expensive apartments- decked with duplexes- charms those who believe in the Indian dream, the facet of having tons of poor living on the brink, besieged in tin-sheds, thriving on a loaf of bread a day, with the constant sound of inconsolable children at the backdrop dwarfs the anticipation and hope about India.

A reason why India has been lauded is for its financial might. And if it’s been taunted, then it’s for the sheer poverty and deprivation that has straddled the growth story. But now, according to a latest report, India, it seems, is no longer home to the most number of poor in the world.

The situation has changed, even it ever so minutely.

According to a study aptly titled the Future Development blog of Brookings, the figures during the end of May 2018- no longer suggest that India is home to the world’s largest population of the poor. So what does that mean and where does that leave the country?

It is Nigeria that has the maximum population of the world’s largest number of poor, saving the world’s largest democracy the blithe. Whether you believe it or not, we are in times of poverty reduction. At about every single minute- there are at least 44 Indians that come out of extreme poverty. This is, emphatically, one of the fastest rates of poverty reduction in the entire world.

Although, India is no longer the scorn of the world’s in a truly deplorable rating. That, however, means that it is Africa’s Nigeria that has replaced the second-most populated country in the world in this regard. But if the similar trends continue, then it could well mean that India would drop down to 3 where it comes to housing the world’s most poor and deprived.

After Nigeria- now established as the home to the maximum number of poor in the world- the number 2 spot in the list goes to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Here’s some explanation from the Future Development ‘Blog’ of Brookings.

“Defining extreme poverty as living on less than $1.9 a day, a recent study published in a Brookings blog says that by 2022, less than 3% of Indians will be poor and extreme poverty could be eliminated altogether by 2030.”

But when compared to India, that has about 73 million in poverty, Nigeria has around 87 million dwelling in poor economic situations. And there doesn’t seem to be a moment of reprieve for the Nigerians whatsoever. Every minute, the number of individuals living in extreme poverty seems to grow by six people- that’s a bizarre rate of accumulation, truth be told.

While you can’t help but feel for those mired by poverty, the economists, on the other hand, present a figure of optimism. It appears, that, the only way out of the poverty- according to the economists- is by way of economic prosperity. The math is simple. Only economic progress, economists suggest, can create a dent in the heart of extreme poverty.

But such an extensive study actually may not have been possible had it not been for the concept of World Poverty Clock. This is a concept that takes into account household surveys and the projections of economic growth from the IMF’s World Economic Outlook. The same study suggests that Africa accounts for about two-thirds of the world’s extreme poor.

But perhaps nothing may cause a greater grief than knowing that of the 18 countries in the world where the number of extreme poor are rising- 14 are reportedly, in Africa. This, in itself, is a strange scenario. Because on the one hand where there are poor and miserable in Africa, on the other, there is a progressive, productive continent that is witnessing a climate of optimistic entrepreneurship.