The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic reversed the steady progress of poverty reduction over the past 25 years. This unprecedented reversal is being further exacerbated by rising inflation and the impacts of the war in Ukraine. It is estimated these combined crises will lead to an additional 75 million-95 million people living in extreme poverty in 2022 compared with pre-pandemic projections. Almost all countries have introduced new short-term social protection measures in response to the COVID-19 crisis to protect people’s health, jobs, and income. If these measures continue, they will provide the needed assistance for the poor and help them move out of poverty. 

Between 2015 and 2018, global poverty continued its historical decline, with the global poverty rate falling from 10.1 percent in 2015 to 8.6 percent in 2018. Nowcasts suggest that owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, the global poverty rate increased sharply from 8.3 percent in 2019 to 9.2 percent in 2020, representing the first increase in extreme poverty since 1998 and the largest increase since 1990 and setting back poverty reduction by about three years. The losses have been much higher for low-income countries, where poverty reduction has been set back by between eight and nine years. Although the poverty rate is projected to decrease to 8.7 percent in 2021, it was still higher than the pre-pandemic level. 

In 2020, for the first time in two decades, the world’s share of workers living with their families below the international poverty line increased, from 6.7 percent in 2019 to 7.2 percent, meaning that an additional 8 million workers were pushed into poverty. Although the working poverty rate decreased slightly in 2021 to 6.9 percent, it was still higher than the pre-pandemic rate.

By 2020, only 47% of the global population was effectively covered by at least one social protection cash benefit, leaving 4.1 billion people unprotected. In response to the COVID-19 crisis, more than 1,700 social protection measures (mostly short-term) were announced by 209 countries and territories.

Based on reporting from 80 countries on disasters of all origins, including COVID-19, the disaster mortality rate in 2020 was 5.74 persons per 100,000 population. While this figure reflects significant underreporting, it is already in stark contrast to that for the period 2015-2019, when the disaster-related mortality rate averaged 0.93 people per 100,000 population. At least 8 percent of the disaster-related mortality in 2020 is estimated to be due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has been responsible for a considerable reversal in the trend of disaster-related mortality reduction since the beginning of the decade.

While countries were coping with the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, 33 countries reported direct economic losses in 2020 due to other disasters in the amount of $ 16.55 billion, which represented 0.14 percent of the national gross domestic product (GDP). Beyond monetized disaster-related losses, several countries have reported losses in housing, critical infrastructure, and other sectors.

Expenditure on education decreased in 2020 but bounced back in 2021 as schools reopened. The median value of the proportion of government expenditure on education decreased from 13.5 percent in 2019 to 12.6 percent in 2020 and then bounced back to 14.6 percent in 2021.