In ancient times, Maldives were renowned for cowries, coir rope, dried tuna fish, ambergris (maavaharu) and coco de mer (tavakkaashi). Local and foreign trading ships used to load these products in the Maldives and bring them abroad.
The gross domestic product (GDP) of Niger was $16.617 billion US dollars in 2023, according to official data from the World Bank. This data is based largely on internal markets, subsistence agriculture, and the export of raw commodities: foodstuffs to neighbors and raw minerals to world markets. Niger, a landlocked West African nation that straddles the Sahel, has consistently been ranked on the bottom of the Human Development Index, at 0.394 as of 2019. It has a very low per capita income, and ranks among the least developed and most heavily indebted countries in the world, despite having large raw commodities and a relatively stable government and society not currently affected by civil war or terrorism. Economic activity centers on subsistence agriculture, animal husbandry, re-export trade, and export of uranium.
Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to the south; Zambia to the southwest; and Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west. Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain, is in northeastern Tanzania. According to the 2022 national census, Tanzania has a population of nearly 62 million, making it the most populous country located entirely south of the equator.
The economy of Tanzania is a lower-middle income economy that is overwhelmingly dependent on agriculture. Tanzania's economy has been transitioning from a planned economy to a market economy since 1985. Although total GDP has increased since these reforms began, GDP per capita dropped sharply at first, and only exceeded the pre-transition figure in around 2007.
The standard of living in India varies from state to state. In 2021, extreme poverty was fully eradicated to as low as 0.8% and India is no longer the nation with the largest population under poverty.
Poverty reduction, poverty relief, or poverty alleviation is a set of measures, both economic and humanitarian, that are intended to permanently lift people out of poverty.
Poverty in India remains a major challenge despite overall reductions in the last several decades as its economy grows. According to an International Monetary Fund paper, extreme poverty, defined by the World Bank as living on US$1.9 or less in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, in India was as low as 0.8% in 2019, and the country managed to keep it at that level in 2020 despite the unprecedented COVID-19 outbreak. According to World Bank, extreme poverty has reduced by 12.3% between 2011 and 2019 from 22.5% in 2011 to 10.2% in 2019. A working paper of the bank said rural poverty declined from 26.3% in 2011 to 11.6% in 2019. The decline in urban areas was from 14.2% to 6.3% in the same period.The poverty level in rural and urban areas went down by 14.7 and 7.9 percentage points, respectively. According to United Nations Development Programme administrator Achim Steiner, India lifted 271 million people out of extreme poverty in a 10-year time period from 2005–2006 to 2015–2016. A 2020 study from the World Economic Forum found "Some 220 million Indians sustained on an expenditure level of less than Rs 32 / day—the poverty line for rural India—by the last headcount of the poor in India in 2013."
Poverty in Pakistan has been recorded by the World Bank at 39.3% using the lower middle-income poverty rate of US$3.2 per day for the fiscal year 2020–21. In September 2021, the government stated that 22% percent of its population lives below the national poverty line set at Rs. 3030 (US$10) per month.
In China today, poverty refers mainly to the rural poor. Decades of economic development has reduced urban extreme poverty. According to the World Bank, more than 850 million Chinese people have been lifted out of extreme poverty; China's poverty rate fell from 88 percent in 1981 to 0.7 percent in 2015, as measured by the percentage of people living on the equivalent of US$1.90 or less per day in 2011 purchasing price parity terms, which still stands in 2022.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Tanzania:
Rural poverty refers to situations where people living in non-urban regions are in a state or condition of lacking the financial resources and essentials for living. It takes account of factors of rural society, rural economy, and political systems that give rise to the marginalization and economic disadvantage found there. Rural areas, because of their small, spread-out populations, typically have less well maintained infrastructure and a harder time accessing markets, which tend to be concentrated in population centers.
Poverty in Mexico deals with the incidence of poverty in Mexico and its measurement. It is measured based on social development laws in the country and under parameters such as nutrition, clean water, shelter, education, health care, social security, quality and availability of basic services in households, income and social cohesion. It is divided in two categories: moderate poverty and extreme poverty.
Bangladesh is a developing nation. Despite rapid economic growth, poverty remains a major issue. However, poverty has declined sharply in recent history. Shortly after its independence, approximately 90% of the population lived under the poverty line. However, since economic reforms and trade liberalization of early 1990s, along with accelerated economic growth since early-2000s, Bangladesh have experienced a dramatic progress in reducing poverty. The remarkable progress in poverty alleviation has been recognized by international institutions. According to World Bank, more than 33 million Bangladeshi people have been lifted out of poverty since 2000; as measured by the percentage of people living on the equivalent of US$1.90 or less per day in 2011 purchasing price parity terms.
Nigeria had one of the world's highest economic growth rates, averaging 7.4% according to the Nigeria economic report that was released in July 2019 by the World Bank. Following the oil price collapse in 2014–2016, combined with negative production shocks, the gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate dropped to 2.7% in 2015. In 2016 during its first recession in 25 years, the economy contracted by 1.6%. Nationally, 43 percent of Nigerians live below the poverty line, while another 25 percent are vulnerable. For a country with massive wealth and a huge population to support commerce, a well-developed economy, and plenty of natural resources such as oil, the level of poverty remains unacceptable. However, poverty may have been overestimated due to the lack of information on the extremely huge informal sector of the economy, estimated at around 60% more, of the current GDP figures. As of 2018, the population growth rate is higher than the economic growth rate, leading to a slow rise in poverty. According to a 2018 report by the World Bank, almost half the population is living below the international poverty line, and unemployment peaked at 23.1%.
Poverty reduction in Guatemala remains as one of the key challenges to be dealt with before a more balanced and socially inclusive economic growth could be achieved.
Poverty in Sri Lanka is 4%. Sri Lanka's life expectancy and literacy rate are nearly on par with those of developed countries, and even top the rankings for the South Asia region. While all these indicate that Sri Lanka should be experiencing a high standard of living, until recently it has only ranked in the medium category of the Human Development Index (HDI). This is despite the fact that Sri Lanka has been experiencing moderate growth in its GDP averaging 5.5 per annum between 2006 and 2009. One of the reasons is due to its relatively low GDP per capital;. The Sri Lankan government has been successful in reducing poverty from 15.2% on 2006 to 8.9% in 2010, urban poverty was reduced from 6.7 to 5.3% while rural poverty was reduced from 15.7 to 9.5%, and the nation has made significant progress towards achieving Millennium Development Goals on eradicating extreme poverty and hunger.
In 2021, official government statistics reported that the Philippines had a poverty rate of 18.1%,, significantly lower than the 49.2 percent recorded in 1985 through years of government poverty reduction efforts. From 2018 to 2021, an estimated 2.3 million Filipinos fell into poverty amid the economic recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
East Timor continues to be one of the world's poorest countries, with GDP per capita standing at $3,949 (2011). It is ranked 147 out of 187 (2011) countries in the UN's Human Development Index.
In Afghanistan, poverty is widespread in rural and urban areas. However, it has been estimated that poverty in Afghanistan is mainly concentrated in rural areas. It has been estimated that four out of five poor people live in rural areas. In these rural areas, families without enough access to adequate nutrition see many infants and children become stunted, malnourished, and die each year. The regions in Afghanistan where almost half of the inhabitants are poor are the East, Northeast, and West-Central regions. According to the Afghan government's estimates, 42 percent of the Afghanistan's total population lives below the poverty line. Also, 20 percent of people living just above the poverty line are highly vulnerable to falling into poverty.
Kenya is a lower-middle income economy. Although Kenya's economy is the largest and most developed in eastern and Central Africa, 16.1% (2023/2024) of its population lives below the international poverty line. This severe poverty is mainly caused by economic inequality, government corruption and health problems. In turn, poverty also worsens these factors. The Kenyan government's efforts to address poverty have received help from international institutions as well. The incident rate of poverty has steadily decreased, as shown by a recent MPI index.
