hemant Gupta

Paraguay’s national poverty rate fell from 51.4% in 2003 to 24.7% in 2022, one of the most significant drops in Latin America over that period. That headline, however, only tells part of the story. According to the World Bank’s most recent Poverty and Equity Brief, rural poverty in Paraguay is about 31%, more than twice that of the urban population. While the numbers are still worrying, the situation is improving. In rural areas, the poverty rate decreased from 28.1% to 25.9% between 2023 and 2024.

The WHO has described the north-central band of Africa below the Sahara Desert, known as the Sahel region, as a humanitarian crisis due to factors including poverty, instability and armed conflict. Poverty in the Sahel region is not only shaped by these circumstances. It is also influenced by a persistent policy pattern known as urban bias, in which cities receive disproportionate investment while rural areas are systematically overlooked.