Foreign Desk: The 2020 coronavirus pandemic and inflation after its initial shock subsided have increased the number of people living in extreme poverty in Asia by 68 million. Currently, at least 155.2 million people are living in extreme poverty in the least developed developing countries of Asia.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB), the world’s largest regional lender, said this in a report on Thursday. This report has been prepared on the basis of 2022 data.
According to ADB data, the number of people currently suffering from extreme poverty in various Asian countries is 67.8 million more than in 2019, a year before the corona pandemic.
In 2017, the World Bank defined extreme poverty. By that definition, if a person’s daily living expenses are less than $2.15 (Tk. 234), that person is in extreme poverty.
The ADB held a press conference on Thursday at its headquarters in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, to release the report. The agency’s top economist Albert Park was present at the press conference.
According to these economists, Asia and the Pacific have started restoring economic stability after the shock of the pandemic has passed. In such a situation, if poverty increases rapidly in public life, then it will become a major obstacle in the way of various activities related to economic stability in the near future.
However, according to ADB’s calculations, there has been a slight decrease in the number of poor in the second year as compared to the first year of the Corona epidemic. According to the organization’s 2021 report, the number of people living in extreme poverty in Asia has increased by 80 million since the start of the pandemic in 2020 compared to 2019.