NEW YORK, October 14, 2026 – Poverty rarely arrives alone. When access to electricity is poor, water is far away, and schools are inaccessible, one problem will quickly turn into several: a child is absent from school because he or she must fetch water; a household uses wood or charcoal for cooking; a person goes hungry; a health facility cannot operate efficiently. The 2026 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index reflects the intersectionality, which, for the first time since 2010, is deteriorating globally.
The report was unveiled by the United Nations Development Programme and the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative of the University of Oxford on Oct. 12. The report indicates that 1.2 billion people in 108 developing countries live in extreme multidimensional poverty, a number 51.5 million higher than in the last update.
More than income
The MPI differs from income-based measures in that the former checks on whether a population lacks basic necessities required for a decent standard of living. The ten indicators of multidimensional poverty are weighted and include health dimensions like nutrition and child mortality; education such as years of schooling; and living standards including cooking fuels, sanitation, electricity and housing.
A person is deemed multidimensionally poor if he experiences deprivations in one-third of the ten indicators listed above. This is very important since a household which is above the poverty line will also be without clean drinking water, reliable energy or education.
Children bear the burden
Children constitute more than 50 percent of the global multidimensional poor. Out of the 1.2 billion poor people, 617 million are children under 18.
The rural poor are also heavily impacted. About 83 percent of multidimensionally poor people reside in rural settings, which lack adequate infrastructure and public services.
Sub-Saharan Africa continues to be the center of the problem. This region is home to 616 million multidimensional poor people, constituting 51.4 percent of its population.
UNDP Administrator Alexander De Croo called the reversal a “wake-up call for the world.” Hunger, missed schooling, and lack of clean water or electricity, he said, reinforce one another and trap families in hardship.
Why the number rose
This increase is not an indication that all countries have gone backwards. It partially stems from the growing population, as the update in 95 countries for which there was no new survey data increased the poverty population by 15.8 million.
The rest comes from changes in poverty rates, population demographics, and survey coverage. In other words, the number is a recast of the global picture, not a straightforward measure of how many people have become impoverished within one year.
Nigeria demonstrates the nature of such progress. The country managed to decrease multidimensional poverty in the 2010s decade, while in the 2020s decade, the poverty rate and poverty population increased.
Progress remains possible
Total pessimism would misread the data.
In 33 of the 89 countries that had trend data, the countries had halved their MPI values in less than 15 years, including six from Sub-Saharan Africa. In China, the country with the fastest fall in MPI value, the country halved the value in four years, where the rate of poverty had dropped from 9.5 per cent to 4.2 per cent during 2010 to 2014. In Viet Nam, the value halved in seven years.
Another example is that of Eswatini, which demonstrated what can be done through sustained investments, where the rate of multidimensional poverty had decreased from 38.7 per cent to 8.0 per cent within 15 years.
The 2030 deadline
These results come amid less than four years remaining until the deadline for Sustainable Development Goal Target 1.2 to reduce by at least half the proportion of individuals living in multidimensional poverty by 2030.
The UNDP reports that this is a goal that is still within reach, but only possible through coordinated investments in health, education, water, sanitation, and energy – not just stand-alone programs.
The index also presents sub-national figures for 1,360 regions within 100 countries, highlighting the point that national averages may mask levels of local destitution.
The 2026 MPI does not simply tally the number of those in poverty. It indicates where there is overlap of deprivation – and where governments have the opportunity to do something about it before progress disappears.
