NEW YORK: More than a billion people worldwide live in acute poverty and 40 percent are in countries exposed to violent conflict, according to a UN-backed study published on Thursday.

The finding comes in the latest update to the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), jointly published by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.

The MPI was launched in 2010 and this year’s edition features research across 112 countries and 6.3 billion people. It found that 1.1 billion are living in acute poverty and a staggering 455 million are in countries experiencing war or fragility.

‘Conflicts have intensified and multiplied in recent years, reaching new highs in casualties, displacing record millions of people, and causing widespread disruption to lives and livelihoods,’ said Achim Steiner, the UNDP Administrator.

The MPI also revealed that over half of the world’s 1.1 billion poor are children under th
e age of 18, or 584 million. Globally, nearly 28 percent of children live in poverty, compared with 13.5 percent of adults.

Source: Emirates News Agency