More Nigerians expected to fall into poverty by 2027 – World Bank

Despite Nigeria’s resources-rich status, more of the county’s citizens are expected to sink into poverty by 2027, the World Bank Group has said. This is contained in the World Bank’s Africa Pulse report released at the ongoing Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in Washington DC, the United States.

The report noted that sub-Saharan Africa has the highest extreme poverty rate globally, with a large share of the poor concentrated in a few countries. According to the Bretton Woods institution, about 80 percent of the world’s estimated 695 million extreme poor resided in the region in 2024, compared to 8 percent in South Asia, 2 percent in East Asia and the Pacific, 5 percent in the Middle East and North Africa, and 3 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean.

“Within Sub-Saharan Africa, half of the 560 million extreme poor in 2024 resided in four countries,” the report highlighted. It stated that non-resource-rich countries are expected to continue reducing poverty faster than resource-rich countries. The organisation stated that, specifically for Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo — both classified as resource-rich but fragile countries — poverty is expected to increase by 3.6 percentage points between 2022 and 2027.

“Importantly, poverty in resource-rich, fragile countries (which include large countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria) is expected to increase by 3.6 percentage points over 2022–27, being the only group in the region with increasing poverty rates.