World Bank Predicts 141 Million Nigerians Facing Poverty by 2026
The World Bank predicts that by 2026, 141 million Nigerians will be living in poverty, with the poverty rate expected to reach 62 percent. The report highlights ongoing challenges such as high inflation, sluggish economic growth, and instability, which contribute to this grim outlook. The poverty rate is anticipated to stabilize and slightly decline to 61 percent in 2027.
In recent Nigeria Development Update report, the global financial institution warned that “still timid growth and remaining inflationary pressure, particularly from food prices, are expected to further push poverty up.”
According to the report, “the poverty rate is projected to reach 62 percent in 2026, 141 million poor Nigerians, before stabilizing and slightly reducing to 61 percent in 2027.”
The World Bank noted that while inflation is expected to decline gradually over the coming years, it will remain elevated in the near term.
“Price pressures are expected to remain elevated, necessitating sustained monetary policy efforts to re-anchor inflation expectations,” it said.
“Inflation is projected to decline gradually from 23.8 percent in 2025 to 15.8 percent in 2027, supported by monetary policy tightening and lower pressures from exchange rate and petrol prices.”
The report added that “the anticipated moderation also reflects improvements in agricultural production, helped by favorable weather conditions and the easing of global commodity prices.”
However, the Bank cautioned that “the disinflation path remains vulnerable to risks, including outsized exchange rate pressures, potential supply shocks, and volatility in international markets, which could slow progress toward price stability.”
On the fiscal outlook, the World Bank stated that “the fiscal position is projected to remain broadly neutral, supported by gains from the tax reform bills that offset higher social and capital spending.”
It further projected that “the consolidated fiscal deficit is expected to average 2.8 percent of GDP in 2026–2027, with deficits contained just below 3 percent of GDP. On the revenue side, non-oil collections are anticipated.”
Earlier, Fusion Chronicle Reporters reported that the World Bank reported that millions of Nigerians had been pushed deeper into poverty as inflation, weak growth, and inadequate social protection systems continued to erode living standards across the country.
“As a result of still timid growth, high inflation, and an underdeveloped social safety net, the previous fall in consumption levels and rise in poverty levels have yet to start reversing,” the Nigeria Development Update, October 2025 edition stated.
According to the Bank’s analysis on growth incidence curves (GICs), “average consumption levels fell by 6.7 percent between 2019 and 2023, largely as a result of pre-2023 policy missteps and external shocks.”
The decline, the report added, “was more pronounced in urban areas, where subsistence agriculture is less prevalent, and households are more exposed to economic shocks.”
Citing data from the Nigeria Living Standards Survey (NLSS) 2022/23, the World Bank observed that “more than one in two Nigerians were poor in 2023, based on the national poverty line. This is equivalent to 56 percent of the population and a steep increase from 40 percent in 2019.”
The report noted that poverty “remains elevated in the north of the country, where more than Nigerians are poor compared to about 3 in 10 in the south.” It further disclosed that “the northeast zone has the highest incidence of poverty of over 80 percent, compared to 32 percent in the south-south.”
Perhaps the most alarming finding is that “the share of the ultra-poor, that is, Nigerians who cannot sustain healthy caloric requirements even if they spend all their income just on food, increased from 14 to 27 percent between 2019 and 2023, equivalent to 139 million Nigerians living in ultra-poverty in 2023.”
