Due to global crises:

165 million additional people below the poverty line

Poverty is also very high in Afghanistan despite the country's enormous natural resources. The picture shows children who have queued up at a food distribution point with wheelbarrows.

(Bild: APA/AFP/Wakil KOHSAR)

Due to the Covid pandemic and the subsequent economic upheaval, an additional 165 million people worldwide have slipped below the poverty line in recent years. This is the conclusion of a new UN report. A total of 1.65 billion people live below the poverty line.

Due to the Covid pandemic and the subsequent economic upheaval since 2020, the daily money available to those affected has fallen below the threshold of 3.65 dollars (around 3.26 euros), the UN development agency UNDP announced on Friday. A total of 1.65 billion people live below this threshold.

Poverty is very high in Afghanistan despite its enormous natural resources. The picture shows children who have queued up at a food distribution point with pigeon chests.

(Bild: APA/AFP/Wakil KOHSAR)

"The figure could have been even higher"
"This figure could have been even higher if governments had not launched social programs and economic stimulus packages during the corona crisis," said UNDP chief Achim Steiner, the highest-ranking German representative at the United Nations. However, this burden is often unsustainable, especially for poor countries.

A government that can no longer employ doctors and nurses in hospitals, that cannot provide medicines for rural health centers, essentially undermines the country's social infrastructure.

UNDP-Chef Achim Steiner, der ranghöchste deutsche Vertreter bei den Vereinten Nationen

Social consequences
This has far-reaching social consequences: "A government that can no longer employ doctors and nurses in hospitals, that can no longer provide medicines for rural health centers, is essentially undermining the country's social infrastructure," Steiner continued. This means less medical aid, less education and no social safety nets to relieve people when they can no longer feed their families.

United Nations warns: 52 countries are caught in a debt trap
The United Nations had already warned on Wednesday that 52 countries in the world were in a debt trap that they could hardly cope with without help. Public debt worldwide had risen to a record 92 trillion dollars (around 82.5 trillion euros) in 2022. This is five times as much as in the year 2000, with poor countries bearing a disproportionately high share. A good 40 percent of the world's population, 3.3 billion people, live in countries where interest payments on loans exceed expenditure on health or education, it says.

148 million children under the age of five are underdeveloped
Millions of children under the age of five continue to suffer from malnutrition. In 2022, 148 million children under the age of five (22.3 percent) were underdeveloped, 45 million (6.8 percent) were acutely malnourished and 37 million (5.6 percent) were overweight, according to the report.