The poorest countries in the world

Read also:
› The richest countries
› Unemployment rates in comparison
› List of highly indebted developing countries

The Human Development Index (HDI)

The United Nations Development Programme has developed the Human Development Index for better monitoring. In addition to income, it includes factors such as life expectancy and average years of schooling. Thus, on a scale of 0 to 1, the index better represents how medical care and education function in a country. The higher the value, the higher the human development in the country.

Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI)

In this context, the multidimensional poverty index published by the United Nations in cooperation with Oxford University is even more meaningful. Multidimensional here means that various forms of poverty are taken into account. In addition to the criteria of the HDI, the index also covers nutrition and housing, as well as access to water and electricity. In this measurement method, poverty is therefore no longer limited to the financial situation, but includes additional factors of living conditions. The index is formed from the intensity of deprivation and the proportion of the population that is affected or at risk. The MPI is expressed on a scale from 0 to 1, with 0 being the most optimal value with the least deprivation.

Gross national income as the basis for the calculation

The richer a country is, the more it spends on administration and the production of statistics. However, this is not the case for the poorest countries in particular. They already have so much to do with their own budget management that many of them cannot afford - and do not want - the luxury of a federal statistical office. As a result, meaningful data is often unobtainable. For example, the World Bank collects various evaluations of the extent of poverty. The poorest countries in particular have not appeared in the data sets for years (sometimes even decades) because the necessary data are simply not available. According to the World Bank, 69% of the population in Eritrea lives below the poverty line. This figure is the most recent available for Eritrea and dates from 1993. For around 30 other countries, there are only figures that are more than 10 years old. Although the United Nations MPI is published annually, it is based on available data, some of which is several years old.

So it is hardly possible to quantify the real state of poverty according to more precise criteria. For wealth, this would work because the rich countries all publish their figures. For a current country comparison, therefore, the only criterion that is available for all countries must suffice: Gross National Income (GNI).

This results in an inaccuracy: The gap between rich and poor cannot be seen in the GNI, because it is only an average value. One hundred people with an annual income of 2,000 euros and four with 100,000 euros, give an average of 5,769 euros. In other words, almost three times as much as the vast majority of people in the group. A median value would help, but it is not even calculable for 193 individual countries in the UN. If this hidden income gap is taken into account, poverty will be even higher in almost all the countries listed.

Even in industrialized countries, measurement methods such as the relative income poverty risk or the low-income ratio are based only on measurable payments. Material poverty cannot be captured with these. Newer methods such as recording of material deprivation, are increasingly being used in the European Union, but in the poverty-stricken countries of other regions, people will certainly have other things to worry about than statistics for quite some time to come.