Researchers said in a report released today, Friday, that the economic repercussions of the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic could push an additional 395 million people into extreme poverty. The disease may increase the total of those living on less than $ 1.9 per day worldwide to more than one billion people.
This report, published by the United Nations University's International Development Economics Research Institute, presented a number of possibilities that take into account the different poverty lines identified by the World Bank - from extreme poverty to live on $ 1.9 or less per day, to the highest poverty lines by living on less than 5.5 dollars a day.
With the worst possibility of a 20% drop in per capita income or consumption, the number of people living in extreme poverty could rise to 1.12 billion.
If such a reduction is applied to the $ 5.5 boundary among the upper middle-income countries, this may push more than 3.7 billion people, or just over half of the world's population, to live below this poverty line.
"The prospects for the poorest people in the world look bleak unless governments do more quickly and offset the daily loss of income that the poor face," said Andy Sumner, a co-author of the report.
"The result is that progress in reducing poverty can go back 20 to 30 years and make the goal of the United Nations end poverty as if it were the dreams," he added.
Researchers from King's College London and the Australian National University also found that poverty may change in its geographical distribution.
The region with the largest number of people at risk of descending into extreme poverty is South Asia, driven mainly by densely populated India, followed by sub-Saharan Africa, where about a third of the increase will come from.
On Monday, the World Bank said it expected between 70 and 100 million people to slip into extreme poverty due to this global pandemic.
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