• Africa’s Immense Resource Wealth vs. Persistent Child Poverty: Africa holds 30% of global mineral resources, 60% of uncultivated arable land, and vast renewable energy potential
• Corruption and Nepotism Undermine Progress: Illicit financial flows ($88.6 billion annually) and politicised tender processes, divert resources from child welfare

• Zimbabwe’s Mining and Agricultural Reforms Show Promise for Reducing Child Poverty: With investor-friendly policies in mining and agriculture, Zimbabwe anticipates 6% GDP growth in 2025, potentially easing child poverty rate

Harare- The past decade has witnessed gradual but persistent progress in reducing extreme child poverty globally, yet children remain disproportionately affected by poverty compared to adults. Despite advancements, children constitute over half of the global population living on less than $3.00 per day (2021 purchasing power parity, PPP), while making up only 30% of the total population. A comprehensive joint analysis by the World Bank and UNICEF, utilizing updated poverty lines from the World Bank’s Poverty and Inequality Platform, provides an in-depth examination of global, regional, and national trends in child poverty from 2014 to 2024.

These updated poverty thresholds of $3.00 per day for extreme poverty in the world’s poorest countries and $8.30 per day for assessing poverty in middle-income countries reflect inflation and evolving consumption patterns, offering a clearer picture of child poverty across diverse economic contexts.

The findings highlight significant progress, persistent challenges, and unadulterated regional disparities, with Sub-Saharan Africa facing unique obstacles due to corruption, unaccounted economic activities, and systemic issues that exacerbate child poverty.

Globally, the number of children living in extreme poverty (below $3.00/day) has decreased from 507 million in 2014 to approximately 412 million in 2024, representing a decline from 24% to 19% of the global child population. This reduction of nearly 100 million children lifted out of extreme poverty is a significant achievement, despite a temporary setback caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

However, at the higher poverty threshold of $8.30/day, which is more relevant for middle-income countries, the situation remains dire, with 1.4 billion children which is 66% of the global child population living below this line in 2024. Although this reflects an improvement from 73% in 2014, the scale of poverty at this level reflects the urgent need for targeted interventions.

Progress has been uneven across regions, with Sub-Saharan Africa lagging significantly behind, while regions like South Asia and East Asia have made remarkable strides.

Sub-Saharan Africa stands out as the epicenter of extreme child poverty, with over 52% of children living on less than $3.00 per day in 2024, a figure virtually unchanged from 2014. The region accounts for three in four children globally living in extreme poverty, despite comprising only 23% of the world’s child population.

This disproportionate burden is driven by a combination of rapid population growth, fragility, conflict, and climate vulnerability, which create a challenging environment for poverty reduction.

Corruption and unaccounted economic activities further compound these issues, particularly in countries where systemic governance failures and an untaxed informal economy undermine efforts to address child poverty. African coutries rans most in terms of corruption raning in Transparency International’s findings showing the greedness of political leaders and political powers who uses nepotism to eat public funds and who does not want to relinguish power to entrench corruption and corrupt activities. Africa has most long serving presidents and political parties.

The lack of progress in Sub-Saharan Africa contrasts sharply with other regions, highlighting the need for tailored strategies that address both structural and contextual barriers.

Corruption plays a critical role in perpetuating child poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa, as it diverts resources away from essential services like education, healthcare, and social protection programs that directly benefit children. In many African countries, public funds intended for poverty alleviation are mismanaged or siphoned off through corrupt practices, leaving vulnerable populations, particularly children, without adequate support. In Zimbabwe, the office of the Auditor General reported that at least 1.8 billion dollars is unaccounted for annually due to corruption or mismanagement. That is almost 20 billion in a decade.

Reports indicate that illicit financial flows, including unaccounted revenues from sectors like mining, drain billions of dollars from the economy annually. The informal economy, which accounts for a substantial portion of economic activity in Sub-Saharan Africa, often goes untaxed, reducing government revenue that could be invested in anti-poverty initiatives. In Zimbabwe, the informal sector is estimated to constitute over 60% of the economy (64.7% ZIMSTAT numbers), creating a significant gap in fiscal resources needed for social programs targeting children.

According to the World Bank, Zimbabwe’s extreme child poverty rate remains alarmingly high, with a significant portion of children living below the $3.00/day threshold. Corruption in sectors such as agriculture and mining, key drivers of Zimbabwe’s economy has led to unaccounted wealth and lost opportunities for redistributive policies.

Additionally, Zimbabwe’s high reliance on an untaxed informal economy limits the government’s ability to fund social safety nets, leaving children vulnerable to malnutrition, lack of education, and inadequate healthcare. In the 2025 national budget, the government put the informal sector under tax nets, enforcing heavy penalties on the non-compliant subjects.

Africa possesses an extraordinary wealth of natural resources and human potential that positions it as one of the most capable continents for self-sustained development, yet systemic barriers, particularly the politicisation of funds through corruption, and heavy dependent on the East particularly China which doesn’t take governance concerns or how resources are utilised into consideration when channelling out loans have historically prevented this potential from translating into widespread prosperity.

The continent holds approximately 30% of the world's remaining mineral resources, including vast deposits of critical minerals like cobalt (71% of global production), platinum (92%), gold (89%), diamonds (75%), chromium (60%), and manganese (49%), alongside 12% of global oil reserves and 8% of natural gas.

These resources, combined with abundant arable land, as Africa has 60% of the world's uncultivated arable land, renewable energy potential (the highest technical capacity for solar, wind, and hydropower globally), and a youthful population where nearly half of the world's working-age people will be African by 2050, provide a robust foundation for economic transformation.

The African Development Bank estimates that natural capital accounts for 30-50% of total wealth in most African countries, with over 70% of sub-Saharan Africa's population relying on forests and woodlands for livelihoods. If harnessed equitably, these assets could generate trillions in revenue according to the World Bank's Africa's Resource Future report (2023), which notes that resource-rich governments in sub-Saharan Africa could capture up to 60% more revenue through better royalties and taxes, funding public programs, economic diversification, and energy access for millions.

Evidence from emerging sectors, such as Rwanda's tech hubs and Kenya's mobile money innovations, demonstrates Africa's capacity for innovation-driven growth, Zimbabwe’s investor-friendly tailored system in mining and agriculture, and Botswana's diamond management model, yielding sustained GDP growth above 5% annually, shows how resource governance can drive inclusive development.

Moreover, Africa's green mineral wealth, essential for global net-zero transitions, positions it to lead in sustainable industries, potentially adding $1.5 trillion to GDP by 2050 according to UNEP projections, reflecting that the continent has "everything it needs" in raw potential to eradicate poverty and achieve Agenda 2063 goals.

Despite this abundance, extreme poverty persists in many African countries, largely because funds derived from these resources are frequently politicised, diverted through corruption, elite capture, and opaque deals that prioritise personal gain over public welfare. Corruption drains an estimated $10 billion annually from African economies, according to the African Development Bank, undermining investments in healthcare, education, and infrastructure while eroding investor confidence and perpetuating inequality.

Illicit financial flows, often linked to resource extraction, siphon off $88.6 billion yearly (UN estimates), equivalent to half of the continent's combined education budgets, leaving essential services underfunded. Politicised funds manifest in practices like resource-backed loans where minerals or oil secure billions in debt from foreign lenders, often without transparency leading to defaults in countries like Zambia and Ghana, and exacerbating debt burdens now at $824 billion continent-wide.

Systemic nepotism and corruption enable wealthy elites to exploit state resources by rigging tender processes and engaging in voter buyouts, channelling public funds through untransparent, unaccounted mechanisms. This plundering of national wealth undermines governance, fuels inequality, and perpetuates poverty, robbing the continent of its potential for equitable development."

Studies, including IMF analyses, confirm that corruption acts as "sand in the economic engine," reducing GDP growth by 1-6.5% in affected nations by deterring foreign direct investment (FDI) and distorting markets. In sub-Saharan Africa, where corruption perceptions are among the world's highest (only two of 30 countries score above global averages per the International Country Risk Guide), it disproportionately harms children and the vulnerable, with Transparency International's Global Corruption Barometer reporting that 58% of Africans perceive rising corruption, directly linking it to increased poverty and exclusion.

Grand corruption, such as absenteeism in public services or informal fees for "free" education and health, and nepotism further entrenches cycles of deprivation, as highlighted in the African Union's Stolen Futures report, which notes that recovered assets could fund critical child welfare programs. This politicisation is not inevitable as countries like Seychelles and Cape Verde, with strong anti-corruption frameworks, achieve higher growth rates, proving that accountable governance can unlock Africa's latent capabilities.

Zimbabwe has vast endowments, including the world's third-largest platinum reserves, significant gold and diamond deposits, and fertile agricultural land that once made it the "breadbasket of southern Africa." On Transparency International's 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index, Zimbabwe scored 21 out of 100, ranking 158th out of 180 countries, reflecting entrenched systemic graft that diverts billions from public coffers.  Reforms like the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) adoption could recover lost revenues, but political will remains a barrier, as noted in the World Bank's 2025 Public Finance Review.

While Zimbabwe's extreme poverty rate hovers around 40% based on national estimates and nowcasts, it is no longer among the absolute top-tier countries with rates exceeding 60%, reflecting incremental progress in some indicators amid ongoing challenges.

Among African countries grappling with extreme poverty defined by the World Bank as living below $3 per day (2021 PPP, updated in June 2025 from the prior $2.15 line to better reflect inflation and consumption patterns) sub-Saharan Africa bears the brunt, hosting 67% of the global extreme poor (approximately 560 million people) despite comprising just 16% of world population, with regional rates at 45.5% in 2022 nowcasts projected to ease slightly to 43.9% by 2025. The highest rates are concentrated in fragile, conflict-affected states, where poverty exceeds 60% of the population, compounded by climate shocks, insurgencies, and governance failures. Based on the latest World Bank nowcasts (June 2025 update), Statista projections, and IMF/World Data Lab estimates for 2024-2025, the top countries include:

Nigeria and Tanzania, while not topping percentage rates (around 40% and 25% respectively), account for massive absolute numbers Nigeria alone hosts 11% of global extreme poor (about 80-90 million people) highlighting how population size amplifies the crisis in resource-rich but poorly governed nations. These figures, revised upward in the World Bank's June 2025 update using 2021 PPPs, reflect stalled progress post-COVID, with sub-Saharan rates at 45.5% in 2022 nowcasts.

Addressing politicised funds through transparent revenue management, as advocated by the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), could halve these rates by 2030, channelling resources back to the people and realizing Africa's true potential.

In contrast, South Asia has demonstrated remarkable progress in reducing extreme child poverty, with the rate falling from 25% in 2014 to just over 8% in 2024. India has been a key driver of this success, reducing its extreme child poverty rate from over 25% to just over 5% between 2011 and 2022. However, at the $8.30/day threshold, 85% of children in South Asia remain in poverty, indicating that while extreme poverty has declined, broader economic vulnerability persists. East Asia and the Pacific also saw significant gains, with the extreme child poverty rate dropping from 13% to 4%, driven by countries like Indonesia, which reduced its rate from 26% to 7% between 2015 and 2024, lifting nearly 20 million children out of poverty. At the $8.30/day level, the region’s child poverty rate fell from 59% to 37%, with China playing a pivotal role.

Latin America and the Caribbean, primarily composed of upper-middle-income countries, maintained relatively low levels of extreme child poverty at just under 8% in 2024, down from over 10% in 2014. However, at the $8.30/day threshold, over 41% of children remain in poverty, reflecting persistent inequality. Europe and Central Asia saw a decline in child poverty at the $8.30/day level, from 19% to just over 10%.

Conversely, the Middle East and North Africa experienced a troubling reversal, with extreme child poverty nearly doubling from 7% to 13% between 2014 and 2024, largely due to deteriorating conditions in Yemen. At the $8.30/day level, the region’s child poverty rate remained stagnant at around 60%, reflecting the impact of conflict and economic instability.

The persistence of child poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa is deeply tied to systemic issues like corruption and the untaxed informal economy. Corruption erodes trust in institutions and diverts resources from critical social services, while the informal economy limits fiscal capacity for poverty alleviation programs. Addressing these challenges requires robust anti-corruption measures, such as transparent governance and accountability mechanisms, alongside efforts to formalise and tax informal economic activities.

Implementing digital tax systems could help capture revenue from informal sectors, as seen in some African countries like Kenya, where mobile-based tax collection has shown promise. Additionally, investing in child-focused social protection programs, such as cash transfers and school feeding initiatives, can directly mitigate the impacts of poverty on children.

Ending child poverty is achievable but demands targeted, sustained, and inclusive efforts. In Sub-Saharan Africa, addressing corruption and unaccounted economic activities is critical to unlocking resources for child welfare. Prioritising children in poverty reduction strategies is not only a moral imperative but also an investment in sustainable development.

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