Inflation pushed 71M people into poverty since Ukraine war

Afghans receive aid at a camp after an earthquake in Gayan district in Paktika province, Afghanistan, Sunday, June 26, 2022. A powerful earthquake struck a rugged, mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan early Wednesday, flattening stone and mud-brick homes in the country's deadliest quake in two decades, the state-run news agency reported. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Nooroozi)

A girl reaches out from a window of her home built on squatted land that is occupied by hundreds of poor families in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Monday, June 20, 2022. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

A worker collects Egyptian traditional 'baladi' flatbread, at a bakery, in el-Sharabia, Shubra district, Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, March 2, 2022. Egypt will receive a $500 million loan from the World Bank to help finance its wheat purchases as prices skyrocket because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Bank said Wednesday. The funds, approved Tuesday by the World Bank Board of Executive Directors, aim at supporting Egypt’s efforts to provide subsidized bread to poor and vulnerable households, it said. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty, File)

An Afghan refugee boy carries a bag of mangoes on his shoulder in Karachi, Pakistan, Sunday, June 19, 2022. Some 1.6 billion people in 94 countries face at least one dimension of the crisis in food, energy and financial systems, according to a report last month by the Global Crisis Response Group of the United Nations Secretary-General. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan, File)

An aerial view shows an informal Syrian refugee camp, in the Bekaa valley town of Saadnayel, east Lebanon, April 23, 2019. Issam Charafeddine, the caretaker Minister for the Displaced, told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday, July 6, 2022, that Lebanon hopes to start repatriating Syrian refugees within months over objections by the United Nations and rights groups. Lebanon has one of the world's highest numbers of refugees per capita, and currently hosts over 1 million Syrians who fled the decade-old conflict. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)

Protesters chant slogans during a demonstration against a recent hike in the prices of telecommunication and internet services, outside the building of MTC Touch, one of the country's two state-contracted telecom companies, in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, July 5, 2022. Lebanon has been reeling from an economic crisis that has pulled over three quarters of its population into poverty in less than three years. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

Children play near their homes built on squatted land that has been occupied by hundreds of poor families since 2018 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Monday, June 20, 2022. Rising inflation is eroding the buying power of consumers and angering potential voters, who fault President Jair Bolsonaro. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

Maria, who works as a seamstress, sells crochet rags she made as she sits outside her home, alongside others built on squatted land in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Monday, June 20, 2022. Maria, who lives alone, said she is afraid of being evicted because she doesn't have enough money to rent another place. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

Protesters block roads during a demonstration demanding a return to civilian rule and to protest the nine people who were killed in anti-military demonstrations last month, in Khartoum, Sudan, Monday, July 4, 2022. (AP Photo/Marwan Ali)

People cross barriers blocking streets during a protest demanding a return to civilian rule and to protest the nine people who were killed in anti-military demonstrations last month, in Khartoum, Sudan, Monday, July 4, 2022. (AP Photo/Marwan Ali)

Vegetable seller Macdala Dieuvalice poses for portrait as she walks out of the market of Kenscoff neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Friday, June 24, 2022. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)

A man takes his goats to the market to sell, in the Kenscoff neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Friday, June 24, 2022.(AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)

A daily wage laborer waits for work at a wholesale market in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Sunday, June 26, 2022. Sri Lankans have endured months of shortages of food, fuel and other necessities due to the country's dwindling foreign exchange reserves and mounting debt, worsened by the pandemic and other longer term troubles. Some 1.6 billion people in 94 countries face at least one dimension of the crisis in food, energy and financial systems, according to a report last month by the Global Crisis Response Group of the United Nations Secretary-General. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena, File)

A food street vendor pushes his trolley in Istanbul, Turkey, Monday, July 4, 2022. Annual inflation in Turkey hit 78.62% in June, the highest rate since 1998, according to official data released Monday. The Turkish Statistical Institute, or TurkStat, released the monthly figures as Turkey is experiencing a deepening cost-of-living crisis. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

Auto rickshaw drivers line up to buy gas near a fuel station in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Wednesday, April 13, 2022. Some 1.6 billion people in 94 countries face at least one dimension of the crisis in food, energy and financial systems, according to a report last month by the Global Crisis Response Group of the United Nations Secretary-General. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena, File)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A staggering 71 million more people around the world are experiencing poverty as a result of soaring food and energy prices that climbed in the weeks following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the United Nations Development Program said in a report Thursday.

The UNDP estimates that 51.6 million more people fell into poverty in the first three months after the war, living off $1.90 a day or less. This pushed the total number globally at this threshold to 9% of the world's population. An additional 20 million people slipped to the poverty line of $3.20 a day.

In low-income countries, families spend 42% of their household incomes on food but as Western nations moved to sanction Russia, the price of fuel and staple food items like wheat, sugar and cooking oil soared. Ukraine's blocked ports and its inability to export grains to low-income countries further drove up prices, pushing tens of millions quickly into poverty.

“The cost of living impact is almost without precedent in a generation... and that is why it is so serious,” UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner said at the launch of the report.

The speed at which this many people experienced poverty outpaced the economic pain felt at the peak of the pandemic. The UNDP noted that 125 million additional people experienced poverty over about 18 months during the pandemic’s lockdowns and closures, compared with more than 71 million who hit poverty in just three months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February.

“The speed of this is very quick,” said George Molina, UNDP chief economist and author of the report.

Among the 20 countries hit hardest by inflation are Haiti, Argentina, Egypt, Iraq, Turkey, the Philippines, Rwanda, Sudan, Ghana, Kenya, Sri Lanka and Uzbekistan. More people in these countries, some of which have been roiled by political turmoil like Sudan and Sri Lanka, are facing poverty, according to the UNDP. In countries like Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Mali, Nigeria and Yemen, the effects of inflation are felt deeply by those already at the lowest poverty line.

The total number of people living in poverty, or are vulnerable to poverty, stands at over 5 billion, or just under 70% of the world’s population.

In Ghana, where the daily minimum wage is just $1.80 a day, people are struggling under the weight of inflation. Albert Kowfie, a 27 year-old security guard in Accra, Ghana, said a loaf of bread costs the equivalent of over $2 and commuting to work costs another 20 cents.

“It means that by the end of the first week (of work), everything is gone,” he said, expressing frustration at the government for not doing more to alleviate the burden. “I don’t answer my mother’s calls anymore because I know she needs help since she is not on any pension, but what can l do?”

Another U.N. report released Wednesday said world hunger rose last year with 2.3 billion people facing moderate or severe difficulty obtaining enough to eat — and that was before the war in Ukraine.

There is a need for the global economy to step up, Steiner said, adding that there is enough wealth in the world to manage the crisis, “but our ability to act in unison and rapidly is a constraint”.

The UNDP recommends that rather than spending billions on blanket energy subsidies, governments instead target expenditure to reach the most impacted people through targeted cash transfers that can prevent a further 52.6 million people from falling into poverty at $5.50 a day.

For cash-strapped and debt-laden developing countries to achieve this, the UNDP called for an extension of debt payments that had been in place during the pandemic among the world's richest nations.

Steiner said doing so is not only an act of charity but is also “an act of rational self interest" to avoid other complex trends, such as economic collapse in countries and popular protests already taking place in communities across the world.

The war in Ukraine has roiled a region known as the world’s bread basket. Before the war, Russia was the world’s largest exporter of natural gas and the second biggest exporter of crude oil. Russia and Ukraine combined accounted for almost a quarter of global wheat exports and more than half of sunflower oil exports.

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Associated Press writer Francis Kokutse contributed to this report from Accra, Ghana.

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