Bill and Melinda Gates
More than 40 per cent of “extremely poor people” in the world will
be living in Nigeria and DR Congo by 2050, a report by Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation has revealed.
This is coming as the world’s second richest man and the
Co-founder, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), Bill Gates, has
called on the Nigerian government to increase efforts to fund human
capital development as this will propel the country towards achieving
the year 2030 Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) set by the United
Nations.
In the 2018 goalkeepers report released yesterday, the Bill and
Melinda Foundation said by 2050, Nigeria will have 152 million people in
extreme poverty out of a projected population of 429 million.
It blamed this on the lack of investment in human capital to correspond with the increasing population growth.
Nigeria is currently the seventh most populous country in the world with an estimated population of 198 million.
The annual report, produced in partnership with the Institute for
Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington,
tracks progress being made on the United Nations sustainable development
goals (SDGs).
In June, Brookings Institution reported that Nigeria had overtaken
India as the country with the highest number of poor people, with 87
million of its citizens in extreme poverty.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) had also said in March that
Nigerians are getting poorer due to the lack of coherent and
comprehensive economic reforms.
The goalkeepers report said while more than a billion in the world have lifted themselves out of extreme poverty since 2000, “extreme poverty is becoming heavily concentrated in sub-Saharan African countries.”
“By 2050, that’s where 86 per cent of the extremely poor people
in the world are projected to live. The challenge is that within
Africa, poverty is concentrating in just a handful of very fast-growing
countries,” the report said.
“By 2050, for example, more than 40 per cent of the extremely
poor people in the world will live in just two countries: Democratic
Republic of Congo and Nigeria. Even within these countries, poverty is
still concentrating in certain areas.”
The foundation said to address the poverty crisis, adequate
investment would need to be made in young people, especially in areas of
education, health and human capital development.
“Investing in young people’s health and education is the best
way for a country to unlock productivity and innovation; cut poverty,
create opportunities and generate prosperity,” the report added.