Looking at the indicators of economic stability worldwide, one can notice that there are huge disparities and in this article, Insider Monkey provides you a list of 31 countries with the highest poverty rates in the world in 2017.
One of the most inspirational thinkers and undoubtedly one of the most prominent historical figures, Mahatma Gandhi, equated poverty with the most severe form of violence. There is no denying that poverty undermines human opportunities to develop their full potential. Personally, I think it’s a form of human rights abuse. While there is an ongoing theoretical debate as to whether economic, social and cultural rights fit into the prism of human rights, there is no questioning that right to health, housing, education, and an adequate standard of living are of paramount importance to human life. Unfortunately, we all know too well that while everyone is entitled to these rights, as proclaimed by numerous international human rights treaties and conventions, not everyone realizes them. In this article, we are focusing on countries with the highest poverty rates in 2017, where the conditions for the full realization of economic, social and cultural rights are pretty much nonexistent. It just shows a grim reality of the world we live in.
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Not that long ago, I wrote about top 25 richest, healthiest and most advanced countries in the world. Utopias do not exist. However, countries on the list really do come close to being utopian places to live in. I did the research for the article imagining what it would be like living in some of the countries which made it to the list. All the countries on the list are among top 100 richest countries in the world. To make things more interesting, they were also on the list of top 100 richest countries in the world in 2015. It appears that they have all developed a high standard of living, providing for an optimal quality of life, and they are intent on keeping it. They remain my safe place when daydreaming, trying to avoid thinking about the issues of the 3rd world.
Life looks quite different in countries which made it to the list of top 100 poorest countries in the world. Most of the countries on this list are those located on the African continent. Tanzania, Somalia, and Ethiopia are among top 10 poorest countries in Africa. However, it is not only African countries that have very high poverty indexes. Haiti, for example, has a poverty index ranking it very high on the list of the poorest countries in the world. Mexico, Guatemala, Suriname, and Honduras are also non-African countries which are ranked among top 20 poorest countries in the world. We have already published an article on poorest countries in South America. We have established that some of them are Peru, Ecuador, Guyana, etc. Check out which country ranked at the top of that list.
To create today’s list of countries with the highest poverty rates in the world in 2017, I have used data provided by a couple of relevant sources. My primary sources of information were the report published by the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI), which provided the ranking of countries with regards to the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index and the data on the World Development Indicators provided by the World Bank. Furthermore, I have referred to country reports provided by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the World Bank, where available.
31. Cameroon
Poverty is very much present in the rural areas of Cameroon. Data shows a small decrease in poverty rate which is currently close to 40%.
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