The World Bank has projected that poverty levels in Nigeria will rise by 2027, despite the country’s vast natural resource endowment.
This forecast was contained in the latest Africa Pulse report released during the ongoing Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in Washington, D.C., United States.
According to the report, sub-Saharan Africa continues to record the highest rate of extreme poverty globally, with a significant portion of the poor population concentrated in a few countries. The Bretton Woods institution noted that in 2024, approximately 80 percent of the world’s estimated 695 million people living in extreme poverty were in sub-Saharan Africa. This contrasts with 8 percent in South Asia, 2 percent in East Asia and the Pacific, 5 percent in the Middle East and North Africa, and 3 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean.
“Within Sub-Saharan Africa, half of the 560 million extreme poor in 2024 resided in four countries,” the report stated.
The World Bank further noted that non-resource-rich countries are projected to reduce poverty at a faster pace than those with abundant natural resources. It identified Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo—both classified as resource-rich but fragile states—as countries where poverty is expected to worsen, projecting a 3.6 percentage point increase between 2022 and 2027.
