By Eric Teniola
ON July 10 this year, Joanna Slater published an article in the Washington Post. In the article, she claimed that “It is a distinction that no country wants: the place with the most people living in extreme poverty.
For decades, India remained stubbornly in the top spot, a reflection of its huge population and its enduring struggle against poverty.
Now, new estimates indicate that Nigeria has knocked India out of that position, part of a profound shift taking place in the geography of the world’s poorest people.
According to a recent report from the Brookings Institution, Nigeria overtook India in May to become the country with the world’s highest number of people living in extreme poverty, which is defined as living on less than $1.90 a day. The threshold captures those who struggle to obtain even basic necessities such as food, shelter and clothing, and takes into account differences in purchasing power between countries.
The Brookings report was…
