Rise in poverty is ‘a wake-up call for the world’, UN development chief says

The number of people living in “multidimensional” poverty has risen for the first time in 15 years, reaching 1.2 billion, as families struggle to meet their basic needs. 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 deprivationsIt 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 sanitati...