Uneven Progress: The Global Fight Against Child Poverty

Since 2014, the fight against child poverty has seen uneven progress worldwide, with some regions making significant strides while others have stagnated or even regressed. Globally, the number of children living in extreme poverty - defined as surviving on less than $3 per day - fell from 507 million in 2014 to 412 million in 2024, according to the State of the World’s Children 2025 report from UNICEF. This figure is still exceedingly high, with estimates revealing that approximately one in five children (19.2 percent) lives in extreme monetary poverty globally. Nearly 90 percent of these children are in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

As the following infographic shows, Sub-Saharan Africa remains the epicenter of extreme child poverty. In 2024, over 52 percent of children in the region lived on less than $3 per day, a rate that has remained largely unchanged since 2014. The region is home to three-quarters of all children living in extreme poverty, despite accounting for only 23 percent of the world's child population.

The most remarkable progress was made in South Asia, with the extreme poverty rate among children falling from about 25 percent in 2014 to just over 8 percent in 2024. India played a pivotal role in this success. The region East Asia-Pacific also recorded notable gains, with rates decreasing from over 12 percent in 2014 to 4 percent last year, particularly thanks to Indonesia's progress.

On the contrary, the Middle East and North Africa experienced a reversal, with extreme child poverty almost doubling over the past decade, from around 7 percent in 2014 to 13 percent in 2024, driven by conflict and instability in countries like Yemen, Syria or Palestine.

Finally, Latin America and the Caribbean maintained relatively low levels of extreme poverty among children, with rates falling from over 10 percent in 2014 to just under 8 percent in 2024. However, broader economic vulnerability persists in the region, with more than 40 percent of children living below the poverty line (under $8.30 per day).