Every October 17, the world marks the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty to highlight dignity, rights, and the need for urgent policy action. Yet year after year, millions still go to bed hungry. In 2023, about 864 million people were food insecure at severe levels, posing grave risks to their health and well-being. In Latin America, the Caribbean, and Oceania, severely food-insecure people were 28.2 and 26.8 per cent, respectively. In Asia and Africa, the scenarios are very dire (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1. Hungry people in different parts of the world (The Daily Star and WHO)
That gap between promise and reality is the product of rooted structural barriers, such as conflict, weak growth, climate shocks, and unequal institutions, destabilising short-term shocks of pandemics, price spikes, aid cuts and limits in political will and financing.
Recent global assessments show progress has stalled: roughly ~700 million people (≈8.5% of the world) live in extreme poverty, and poverty is now heavily concentrated in fragile and low-income countries, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa.
This article examines why hunger and poverty persist, how long the crisis may endure under current trajectories, which policy levers can realistically shrink poverty (short of full eradication), the regional picture with data, and practical concluding recommendations.
Why people still go hungry: overlapping structural and acute drivers
Hunger and daily food insufficiency are symptoms of deeper, interlocking problems. First, conflict and fragility destroy livelihoods and markets: farmers are displaced, supply chains collapse, and humanitarian access is constrained. Recent WFP warnings show 13.7 million people in countries such as Afghanistan, DRC, South Sudan, Somalia, Sudan and Haiti facing emergency hunger when aid is cut or access declines.
Second, economic shocks and weak growth have reversed earlier gains. The COVID-19 pandemic and post-pandemic inflation set back poor households, especially in countries that had limited fiscal space or high debt, reducing purchasing power and public social spending. The World Bank’s 2024 assessment shows that global poverty reduction has slowed to a near standstill; many low-income countries remain poorer now than before the pandemic.
Third, climate change and extreme weather are eroding smallholder productivity—floods, droughts, and unpredictable rains destroy harvests and push seasonal food insecurity toward chronic hunger. The intersection of climate risk with concentrated poverty is particularly alarming in IDA (low-income) and fragile states.
Fourth, economic exclusion and inequality block access to jobs, healthcare, education and markets. Even where national GDP grows, benefits often concentrate among urban or higher-skill groups; the poorest, often rural households, women, and marginalised groups, are left behind. Social protection coverage is incomplete: many poor households lack reliable safety nets that smooth shocks.
Fifth, food systems and price volatility. Global or local price spikes (fuel, fertiliser, staple foods) immediately reduce household food access. When donor funding falls, as the WFP has reported, humanitarian lifelines that prevented famine-level outcomes shrink, making spikes far more deadly outcomes.
These drivers interact: conflict worsens economic decline, climate shocks amplify fragility, and weak institutions limit the response. That interaction explains why, despite overall historical long-run declines in poverty, so many still lack enough to eat each night.
How long will this continue? Scenarios, timeframes and the risk of a “lost decade”
Projecting how long hunger and poverty will persist depends on scenarios: baseline (today’s policies continue), optimistic (scaled finance & reform), and pessimistic (prolonged conflict and funding shortfalls).
Under the baseline scenario, moderate growth, some recovery from pandemic shocks, but insufficient additional finance for low-income/fragile states, global extreme poverty is likely to decline slowly, and the world risks a “lost decade” for the poorest, as multiple analyses warn.
The World Bank’s 2024 synthesis suggests that progress has slowed so markedly that the 2020–2030 window may yield little net reduction in extreme poverty unless policy and finance change.
In the optimistic pathway, three things change: (1) sustained and inclusive economic growth in poor countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa; (2) scaled social protection and targeted investments (agriculture, education, health); and (3) climate adaptation and peacebuilding reduce repeated shocks.
If these occur and donor finance and public investments rise meaningfully, poverty declines could accelerate within a decade. However, achieving that requires political commitment and resources beyond business-as-usual.
The pessimistic scenario is characterised by more frequent shocks (climate extremes, pandemics), prolonged conflicts, debt distress in low-income countries, and major donor cuts. Recent WFP alerts about funding cuts (projected falls from $10 billion to ~$6.4 billion) are a real example of how quickly humanitarian capacity can erode, pushing millions closer to famine or chronic hunger.
Timeframe: realistically, without major policy and finance shifts, acute hunger hotspots (countries in conflict or facing severe drought) will remain year-to-year problems; structural extreme poverty could persist at tens to hundreds of millions for decades, especially concentrated in fragile, low-income states. In short, eradication within a single generation is unlikely under the status quo; meaningful reduction is possible but requires accelerated action.
If eradication proves impossible soon, realistic scope to minimise poverty
Eradication of extreme poverty is an aspirational goal. Practically, policymakers should aim for ambitious, measurable reductions and durable resilience. Ten high-impact levers can significantly reduce poverty and severe hunger even if full eradication is elusive:
1. Scale up social protection (cash transfers, food assistance, shock-responsive systems). Transfers work fast to reduce hunger and prevent asset depletion. Investing in expanding coverage and making programs shock-responsive is cost-effective compared with the long-term social costs of undernourishment.
2. Boost agriculture and rural incomes via access to inputs, extension, market links, and risk management (index insurance, resilient seeds). Since much extreme poverty is rural (especially in Sub-Saharan Africa), agricultural productivity matters directly.
3. Invest in human capital (nutrition in the first 1,000 days, schooling, healthcare). Early investments yield high returns in lifetime earnings and resilience.
4. Promote inclusive growth and jobs—focus on labour market policies, small business finance, vocational training, and reducing barriers for women and youth.
5. Address conflict and fragility through diplomacy, local peacebuilding, and stronger governance; humanitarian response must pair with development pathways to prevent re-entry into poverty.
6. Climate adaptation and shock-proofing: invest in irrigation, drought-tolerant crops, flood protection, and disaster financing mechanisms.
7. Debt relief and better financing for low-income countries so they can invest in social programs without crowding out essential public goods. The World Bank emphasises the importance of IDA (concessional finance) for poor countries (https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/brief/global-database-of-shared-prosperity?.
8. Targeted spatial policies, invest in lagging regions within countries (rural roads, electrification, schools).
9. Better data and adaptive policy: social registries, household surveys and early warning systems improve targeting and speed of response.
10. International solidarity and predictable aid, humanitarian funding should be more predictable; donor volatility (cuts) creates spikes in hunger that are avoidable with sustained financing. Recent cuts to aid budgets directly translate into people slipping into emergency hunger.
Together, these measures can substantially minimise extreme poverty and chronic hunger. They shift the problem from repeated emergencies to manageable, declining caseloads—though they require political will and a reprioritisation of global finance flows.
Where poverty is growing (regional patterns and per cent changes)
Global poverty is no longer evenly distributed, as seen from recent World Bank and data analyses- clear regional concentration and divergent trends:
Sub-Saharan Africa
It is now home to roughly 67% of people living in extreme poverty, even though the region is about 16% of the world population. Extreme poverty rates in some countries exceed 40–50%, and the absolute number of people in extreme poverty in the region rose from ~282 million in 1990 to ~464 million in 2024. These trends reflect slow growth, high fertility, conflict, and climate vulnerability.
South Asia
Historically, the epicentre of poverty, South Asia, saw huge reductions over two decades; however, progress slowed with the pandemic. Using higher poverty lines (e.g., $6.85/day), South Asia still has a substantial share of the global poor, but at the extreme poverty line, the share has decreased relative to Africa. Regional improvements continue but remain fragile in parts of Pakistan, Afghanistan and rural India.
Latin America & Caribbean
Many countries had reductions in poverty pre-pandemic; some (Peru, others) saw poverty rise in recent years due to recession and political instability, but the region overall has lower extreme poverty than Sub-Saharan Africa.
Middle East & North Africa
Conflict (Syria, Yemen) and displacement have driven localised spikes in hunger and poverty; oil-rich states differ starkly from conflict-affected states. Fragile and conflict-affected countries (FCS) across regions contain a high share of the global poor.
East Asia & Pacific
Large strides over decades (especially in China, until recent years). Extreme poverty is much lower now, but inequality and pockets of deprivation persist.
What are the percentage changes?
Global patterns depend on the poverty line used. At the international extreme line (~$2.15/day), the world count is ~700 million (≈8.5%). Regional per cent changes rose in the pandemic year (2020)- South Asia’s extreme poverty rose by ~2.4 percentage points in 2020 and Sub-Saharan Africa by ~1.27 points; since then, patterns have varied by country.
Recent revisions emphasise concentration in fragile states and slower declines overall. Exact year-to-year percentage point changes vary by dataset; see World Bank updates and Our World in Data visualisations for interactive regional charts.
Data gaps, measurement and why numbers can look better than lived reality
Poverty metrics are essential but imperfect. Commonly used measures, income/consumption below an international poverty line (e.g., $2.15/day) and the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), capture different things.
Income/consumption lines are sensitive to survey timing, inflation adjustments, and methodological revisions; MPI captures deprivations (nutrition, schooling, sanitation) that income alone misses.
Timing and frequency
Many low-income countries lack frequent national household surveys. When surveys are old, official poverty rates can miss recent shocks (food price spikes, conflict, pandemic effects). Rapid assessments exist but are not always nationally representative.
Hidden vulnerability
People just above the poverty line remain extremely vulnerable to falling back after a shock. So, even when headline poverty falls modestly, large shares may remain one shock away from hunger. Likewise, food insecurity measures (undernourishment, acute malnutrition) highlight immediate hunger risks that income figures may overlook.
Political incentives and data
Some governments underinvest in survey systems or delay publication. Reliable, frequent data (including geospatial, administrative and real-time market data) improves targeting and early response. The policy imperative: invest in better measurement while treating all available indicators (income, MPI, food security) as complementary.
Practical roadmap: policy priorities for the next 5–10 years
To shift from crisis management to durable decline in poverty and hunger, donors and governments should prioritise:
1. Expand shock-responsive social protection: extend coverage, index benefits to price or climate shocks, and link humanitarian and development systems.
2. Target investments to Sub-Saharan Africa and fragile states: IDA financing, debt relief, and catalytic private investment for jobs and infrastructure.
3. Finance climate resilience for smallholders: irrigation, drought-resistant seeds, and weather-indexed insurance.
4. Protect humanitarian budgets and predictability: donor volatility that forces WFP and others to cut has immediate human costs; stable financing prevents backsliding.
5. Invest in human capital at scale: nutrition, early childhood, and universal basic services to break intergenerational poverty cycles.
6. Promote inclusive private sector jobs: small and medium enterprise finance, skills training, and digital inclusion.
7. Improve data systems and early warning: to target resources and quickly respond to price spikes or crop failure.
If pursued together, these priorities can bend the curve: reduce acute hunger, lower extreme poverty shares, and build resilience so fewer households fall back after shocks. Achieving that will take international solidarity, predictable finance and domestic reform.
FAQs
How many people live in extreme poverty today?
Roughly ~700 million people (≈8.5%) by the international extreme poverty line (~$2.15/day).
Which region now contains most of the extremely poor?
The Sub-Saharan Africa, around 67% of the global extreme poor live.
Why did poverty reduction stall after 2019?
COVID-19 shocks, inflation, conflicts, and limited fiscal space in poor countries slowed or reversed progress.
Does higher GDP automatically reduce hunger?
Not always—growth must be inclusive and accompanied by social protection and services to reach the poorest.
Can food aid alone solve hunger?
Food aid is vital in emergencies, but must be paired with development investments (jobs, agriculture, resilience) for long-term change.
How do climate shocks affect poverty?
They destroy assets, reduce yields, and push households into emergency coping that can become chronic poverty.
What role do donors play?
Donors provide humanitarian and concessional finance; predictable aid supports safety nets and prevents catastrophic backsliding. Recent funding cuts have raised hunger risks.
Is eradication by 2030 realistic?
Under current trajectories, full eradication by 2030 is unlikely; targeted accelerated action could still achieve major reductions.
Where can I find more data?
Key sources: World Bank Poverty, Prosperity & Planet (2024), Our World in Data (poverty visualizations), FAO/WFP SOFI reports, and WFP situation updates.
Concluding
The persistence of nightly hunger, even while international days mark our commitment to end poverty, is a moral and policy challenge. Data show that poverty has become concentrated in places with weak institutions, conflict and climate risk, conditions that blunt the impact of conventional growth. Eradication in the short term is unlikely without transformative shifts in financing, peacebuilding, climate adaptation and social protection.
However, targeted, well-funded policies, paid for by rethinking priorities, debt relief, and predictable aid, can substantially minimise poverty and prevent millions from going to bed hungry. The path is hard but not closed: it requires sustained political will, better measurement, and solidarity to turn observance into daily reality.