World Bank Says 421m People Get Less Than $3 a Day In Conflict Zones In 2025, May Rise To 435m By 2030
The World Bank on Friday, 27 June, 2025 disclosed that in the year 2025, 421 million people get less than $3 a day in places hit by conflict or instability, a situation of extreme poverty, warning that the number may jump to 435 million by 2030
It added that increase of conflicts and related fatalities since the early 2000s has fueled extreme poverty
The global financial body said economies in fragile and conflict-affected regions have become the epicenter of global poverty and food insecurity, stressing that the situation has been increasingly shaped by the frequency and intensity of conflict.
World Bank Group chief economist, Indermit Gill, said global attention has been focused on conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East for the past three years.
“But half of the countries facing conflict or instability today have been in such conditions for 15 years or more,” he said.
According to the Washington-based development lender said currently, 39 economies are classified as facing such conditions, and 21 of them are in active conflict.
It listed the countries to be Ukraine, Somalia, South Sudan and the West Bank, Gaza and Iraq.
The Bank further stated that some of these economies have advantages that could be used to reignite growth, noting that places like Zimbabwe, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo are rich in minerals key to clean tech like electric vehicles and solar panels.
World Bank Group Deputy Chief economist, Ayhan Kose said “Economic stagnation — rather than growth — has been the norm in economies hit by conflict and instability over the past decade and a half,”
The global bank pointed out that high-intensity conflicts, which kill more than 150 per million people, are typically followed by a cumulative fall of around 20 percent in GDP per capita after five years.
