Post-pandemic trends in extreme poverty around the world

Years of shocks and imbalanced recoveries have significantly impacted longstanding global poverty trends. In just the last five years, the economic pressures induced by the crises of the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation, conflict, and extreme weather have hampered efforts to reduce poverty. While some countries rebounded quickly after the pandemic, others struggled to improve their economic situation. Against this backdrop, the latest Macro Poverty Outlook (MPO) provides insights into the recent and future path of poverty alleviation for low and middle-income countries. The poverty projections are derived by combining the most recent household survey data available with country-level growth and inflation forecasts and other relevant information such as the coverage and generosity of social assistance programs. These projections use a range of tools including microsimulation models and reflect the World Bank’s most up-to-date information on international poverty trends for 115 countries.

Since 2021, poverty is projected to have declined in most countries, but progress is uneven. Countries facing fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV) continue to confront the steepest challenges. 

Three out of four countries are expected to have had a decline in poverty between 2021 and 2024. That headline hides significant variation, but it signals that a broad recovery took hold after the pandemic-era reversals.

Nearly all countries in Europe and Central Asia (ECA), East Asia and Pacific (EAP), and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) recorded declines in poverty.  These results are driven primarily by economic growth, which was positive for 81% of countries in 2024. This growth trend also extends to the years leading up to 2025. Between 2021and 2024, the average GDP growth rate was positive for 86% of countries.

The picture is mixed in low-income countries and in the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan (MENAAP) and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) regions. About half of low-income countries (11 of 21), half of countries in MENAAP (4 of 8) and 40% of countries in SSA (18 of 46), are expected to have experienced rising poverty during this period. FCV countries faced the worst outcomes: only about one-third (8 of 23) saw improvements.

What may lie ahead: 2025 onwards

In 2025, 80% of countries are expected to see poverty fall, which if materialized would be the largest share of countries with declining poverty in 10 years. This progress also extends to low-income countries and FCV countries where 75% and 70% of countries, respectively, are expected to experience drops in poverty rates.

Notably, the projected improvement in household welfare is a result of the MPO model predicting that economic growth will be passed down to households. In 2025, 85% of countries are predicted to have a real increase in GDP growth rate, which tracks closely to the 80% of countries expected to witness declines in poverty.

In the 10 countries with the highest number of people living in poverty, the projected GDP growth rate in 2025 is positive for nine of them (with Mozambique being the exception). But while the trends signal improvement, the magnitude of these declines are limited for some countries, especially in low-income countries and those affected by FCV,and persistent challenges remain.

As ever, these projections come with caveats: forecasts can change, and the path forward will depend on how economies navigate inflation, growth, debt, climate risks, and conflict. Every year some countries experience unforeseen economic shocks, reversing past gains in poverty reduction. Such shocks are hard to anticipate in economic forecasting, and could put a damper on the forecasted poverty declines. Ultimately, global progress toward reducing poverty remains too slow—at the current pace, it could still take decades to eradicate extreme poverty.

To learn more about recent developments in poverty and inequality in a particular country, the World Bank’s Poverty and Inequality Platform,Poverty and Equity Briefs, and MPOs are valuable resources. The visualization below shows the summary of each country’s macroeconomic conditions in the most recent MPO.

Source : World Bank