September 2026 Global Poverty Update from the World Bank: One in ten worldwide live in extreme poverty - World Bank Blogs

Data InsightsChina reduced extreme poverty fast, but Indonesia hasn’t been far behindOctober 13, 2026China is often the poster child for rapid reductions in poverty, and for good reason. In the early 1980s, over 90% of its population lived in extreme poverty, but by the early 2020s, that number had dropped to nearly zero. Some might assume that China is the only reason why global extreme poverty has declined. But that’s wrong: many countries have seen dramatic reductions in poverty, too. Indonesia is one clear example; it’s shown alongside China on the chart. In 1984, 86% of Indonesians lived on less than $3 per day. By 2025, this had fallen to less than 4%. While it didn’t quite match China’s decline, it has still been impressive. The number of people living in extreme poverty has fallen from 140 million to about 10 million. Note that the international poverty line is extremely low, defined as people living on less than $3 per day. But Indonesia has also made progress when measuring higher poverty lines.

The finding comes in the 2026 update of the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Oxford University, which measures overlapping hardship across health, education and standard of living. The 1.2 billion figure represents 51.5 million more people than in the 2025 update.  Of this number, more than half are children – 617 million – and 83 per cent live in rural areas. ‘This is unacceptable’  “The rise in poverty should be a wake-up call for the world,” said UNDP Administrator Alexander De Croo. “Behind these figures are 1.2 billion people facing hardships that reinforce one another: hunger, missed schooling and a lack of clean water or electricity. This is unacceptable.” The index was developed in 2010 to measure poverty beyond what people earn. Overlapping deprivations It examines 10 indicators of health, education and standard of living, such as nutrition and child mortality, years of schooling, and access to electricity, drinking water and sanitation. A person is considered “multidimensionally poor” if they are deprived in one-third or more of the indicators.