Inflation has pushed 71 million people into poverty since Ukraine war – report

A staggering 71 million people around the world are still experiencing poverty as food and energy prices soared in the weeks following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to a United Nations report.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimates that in the first three months after the war, an additional 51.6 million people fell into poverty, living on $1.90 a day or less.

This pushes the global total at this threshold to 9% of the world’s population.

Another 20 million fell to the poverty line of $3.20 a day.

In low-income countries, households spend 42 percent of their household income on food, but prices for fuel and staples such as wheat, sugar and cooking oil have soared as Western nations begin to impose sanctions on Russia.

Ukraine’s blocked ports and inability to export grain to low-income countries have further pushed up prices, pushing tens of millions of people into poverty quickly.

“The cost of living impact is almost unprecedented in a generation…that’s why it’s so severe,” UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner said at the launch of the report.

Many people are experiencing poverty faster than the economic pain felt at the height of the pandemic.

UNDP noted that 125 million people experienced poverty for about 18 months during the pandemic’s lockdowns and shutdowns, and more than 7,100 in just three months after Russia invaded Ukraine in late February. Ten thousand.

“It’s very fast,” said George Molina, chief economist at UNDP and author of the report.

Some of the countries most affected by inflation include Haiti, Argentina, Egypt, Iraq, Turkey, Philippines, Rwanda, Sudan, Kenya, Sri Lanka and Uzbekistan.

In countries such as Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Mali, Nigeria and Yemen, inflation has a greater impact on those already at the minimum poverty line.

The total number of people living in or vulnerable to poverty exceeds 5 billion, or just under 70 percent of the world’s population.

A separate United Nations report released Wednesday said world hunger rose last year, with 2.3 billion people facing moderate or severe difficulties getting enough food — and that was before the war in Ukraine.

Mr Steiner said the global economy needed to pick up the pace, adding that there was enough wealth in the world to deal with the crisis, “but our ability to act in unison and quickly is a limiting factor”.

Rather than spending billions of dollars on comprehensive energy subsidies, the United Nations Development Programme recommends that governments prevent an additional 52.6 million people at $5.50 a day through targeted cash transfers to pay for those most affected into poverty.

To allow cash-strapped and indebted developing countries to achieve this, the United Nations Development Programme has called for an extension of debt payments for the world’s richest nation during the pandemic.

Mr Steiner said doing so was not only an act of charity but also an “act of rational self-interest” to avoid other complex trends, such as the collapse of the country’s economy and the popular protests already taking place in communities around the world.

Before the war, Russia was the world’s largest exporter of natural gas and the second largest exporter of crude oil.

Russia and Ukraine together account for nearly a quarter of global wheat exports and more than half of sunflower oil exports.