Top 10 African countries with the largest populations living in multidimensional poverty

Poverty is often measured by how much money people earn, but income alone cannot capture the full extent of deprivation. Millions of people live without reliable electricity, clean drinking water, adequate sanitation, quality education or access to healthcare..

• Multidimensional poverty goes beyond income, measuring deprivations in health, education, and living standards.
• The 2026 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index reports 616 million people in sub-Saharan Africa living in acute multidimensional poverty.
• Nigeria has the largest number of people affected, with 113.3 million experiencing multidimensional poverty in 2024.
• Key challenges include weak job creation, infrastructure gaps, rising living costs, and longstanding deficits in health, education, and public services.

Multidimensional poverty captures these overlapping disadvantages across health, education and living standards, revealing hardships that income-based measures can miss.

The 2026 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), estimates that 616 million people in sub-Saharan Africa live in acute multidimensional poverty, representing 51.4% of the region’s population.

The report covers 108 countries, using survey data from 2014 to 2025 to measure deprivation in health, education and living standards. It updates estimates for 13 countries, including Nigeria, and tracks poverty trends in 89 countries, with Nigeria among three assessed across five time points.

Low-productivity employment, infrastructure gaps, conflict, climate shocks and limited access to essential services can deepen deprivation, particularly in rural communities.

Nigeria stands out because it has the largest affected population among the African countries in the ranking, with 113.3 million people living in multidimensional poverty in 2024.

Its position highlights the scale of the challenge in Africa’s most populous country, where rising living costs and longstanding gaps in public services have added pressure on households already struggling to meet basic needs.

The country figures in the ranking below show how these challenges compare across Africa.

Nigeria tops the ranking with 113.3 million people living in multidimensional poverty, followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo with 73.8 million and Tanzania with 32.4 million. Madagascar ranks fourth with 21.9 million, ahead of Niger with 21.6 million and Mozambique with 21 million.

Angola has 18.7 million people affected, while Mali records 15.8 million, Burkina Faso 15.2 million and Kenya 14.3 million, completing the top 10.

The ranking by population differs from one based on poverty rates. Although Nigeria has the largest affected population, Niger has the highest rate among these 10 countries, at 79.9%, followed by Madagascar at 68.4% and the DRC at 67.6%. Kenya records the lowest rate, at 25.4%.

Nigeria’s economic pressures deepen the challenge

Nigeria’s position reflects longstanding structural weaknesses as well as more recent economic pressures. The World Bank has identified weak job creation, low productivity, infrastructure gaps and exposure to economic shocks as major obstacles to poverty reduction.

Nigeria recorded the largest increase in multidimensional poverty, with 17.9 million more people falling into poverty between 2021 and 2024, reversing a decline recorded from 2018 to 2021. Afghanistan followed with an increase of 5.3 million people.

The removal of petrol subsidies in 2023 and foreign-exchange reforms increased pressure on household budgets as fuel, transport and food costs rose. Although the reforms were intended to address wider economic imbalances, higher living costs have made it harder for many households to afford essential goods and services.

The World Bank has stressed the importance of social protection to cushion vulnerable households against the immediate effects of these reforms.

These pressures compound longstanding gaps in education, healthcare, electricity, sanitation and productive employment. Insecurity in parts of the country also disrupts farming, livelihoods and access to services.

The 2026 MPI says Nigeria’s progress in reducing multidimensional poverty during the 2010s reversed in the 2020s, with both the poverty rate and the number of people affected increasing.

In Nigeria, standard-of-living deprivation accounts for 40.6% of multidimensional poverty, while education contributes 30.6%, underlining the importance of improving basic services alongside household incomes.