By Aliyu Nasir
A new report from the World Bank predicts a troubling increase in poverty across Nigeria and other resource-rich yet fragile African nations.
According to the Africa Pulse report, released during the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington, DC, poverty in Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo is expected to climb by 3.6 percentage points between 2022 and 2027.
“Sub-Saharan Africa continues to have the highest extreme poverty rate globally, with a disproportionate concentration of the poor: In 2024, 80% of the world’s 695 million extreme poor lived in Sub-Saharan Africa,” the report stated.
The study highlights that half of the region’s 560 million extreme poor are concentrated in just four countries. By contrast, South Asia accounts for 8% of the global extreme poor, East Asia and the Pacific 2%, the Middle East and North Africa 5%, and Latin America and the Caribbean just 3%.
The World Bank attributes the worsening poverty in resource-rich nations to sluggish oil prices and unstable fiscal systems. Meanwhile, non-resource-rich countries are seeing stronger economic growth, driven by rising agricultural commodity prices.
“This follows a well-established pattern whereby resource wealth combined with fragility or conflict is associated with the highest poverty rates—averaging 46% in 2024, which is 13 percentage points higher than in non-fragile, resource-rich countries,” the report added.
The findings underscore the persistent economic challenges facing Nigeria and other fragile, resource-dependent economies in the region.
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