64% of the World's Extremely Poor Live in Just 5 Countries

The IMF and the World Bank are holding their annual spring meetings this weekend and one of the main topics on the agenda is the fight against extreme poverty. On that occasion, the World Bank has released a report on global poverty yesterday, which contains some interesting data.

Astonishingly, according to the report, 64% of the world’s extremely poor population lives in just 5 countries, namely India, China, Nigeria, Bangladesh and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Our chart shows each of these countries’ share of the world’s poor population alongside the countries’ share of the total world population. Considering population as well, makes clear that the overall situation is much worse in India and Nigeria than it is in China. China accounts for 19% of the world’s population but for “only” 13% of the world’s poor population. With India it’s the other way around: 18% of the world's total population and 33% of the world's poorest population live in India.