Issues of data availability and incomparability in the measurement of household consumption arise frequently when measuring poverty trends over time. Yet, understanding these trends is key to guide national and international policy makers in their poverty reduction efforts. This paper aims to estimate a long-run poverty trend for Nigeria, a country whose poverty trends are crucial for regional and global estimates. In 2020, the Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics released the first official poverty estimates for Nigeria in almost a decade, calculated using the 2018/19 Nigerian Living Standards Survey. Yet the official poverty estimates from the 2018/19 Nigerian Living Standards Survey cannot technically be compared with those from the 2009/10 Harmonized Nigerian Living Standards Survey-the previous official household consumption survey-given key differences in the way household consumption was measured and concerns around data quality in the 2009/10 survey. To address this challenge, this paper uses two distinct methodologies to construct a poverty trend for Nigeria in the decade before the COVID-19 crisis. First, it uses sector-level gross domestic product growth rates combined with micro-data from the 2018/19 Nigerian Living Standards Survey to "backcast" poverty rates back to 2009. Second, it uses survey-to-survey imputation methods and data collected throughout the decade through the General Household Survey panel. Despite their very different foundations, these two approaches produce very similar results, suggesting that there was a small reduction in poverty at the beginning of the decade, followed by a period of stagnation or even a slight uptick in poverty following the 2016 economic recession. The paper estimates a poverty rate of between 42.2 and 46.3 percent in 2009, translating into a reduction in the poverty headcount rate of between 3 and 7 percentage points between 2009 and 2018/19.

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a pronounced setback in the fight against global poverty—likely the largest setback since World War II. Many low- and middle-income countries have yet to see a full recovery. High indebtedness in many countries has hindered a swift recovery, while rising food and energy prices—fueled in part by conflict and climate shocks—have made a return to progress on poverty reduction more challenging than ever. These setbacks have altered the trajectory of poverty reduction in large and lasting ways. The world is significantly off course on the goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030.The year 2020 also marked a historic turning point as decades of global income convergence gaveway to global divergence as the world’s poorest people were hardest hit. The richest people have recovered from the pandemic at a faster pace, further exacerbating differences. These diverging fortunes between the global rich and poor ushered in the first rise in global inequality in decades. Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2022: Correcting Course provides the first comprehensive analysis of the pandemic’s toll on poverty in developing countries.It identifies how governments can optimize fiscal policy to help correct course. Fiscal policies offset the impact of COVID-19 on poverty in many high-income countries, but those policies offset barely onequarter of the pandemic’s impact in low-income countries and lower-middle-income countries. Improving support to households as crises continue will require reorienting protective spending away from generally regressive and inefficient subsidies and toward a direct transfer support system—a first key priority. Reorienting fiscal spending toward supporting growth is a second key priority identified by the report. Some of the highest-value public spending often pays out decades later. Amid crises, it is difficult to protect such investments, but it is essential to do so. Finally, it is not enough just to spend wisely—when additional revenue does need to be mobilized, it must be done in a way that minimizes reductions in poor people’s incomes. The report highlights how exploring the underused forms of progressive taxation and increasing the efficiency of tax collection can help in this regard. Poverty and Shared Prosperity is a biennial series that reports on global trends in poverty and shared prosperity. Each report also explores a central challenge to poverty reduction and boosting shared prosperity, assessing what works well and what does not in different settings. By bringing together the latest evidence, this corporate flagship report provides a foundation for informed advocacy around ending extreme poverty and improving the lives of the poorest in every country in the world. For more information, please visit worldbank.org/poverty-and-shared-prosperity.

This edition of the biennial Poverty and Shared Prosperity report brings sobering news. The COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic and its associated economic crisis, compounded by the effects of armed conflict and climate change, are reversing hard-won gains in poverty reduction and shared prosperity. The fight to end poverty has suffered its worst setback in decades after more than 20 years of progress. The goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030, already at risk before the pandemic, is now beyond reach in the absence of swift, significant, and sustained action, and the objective of advancing shared prosperity—raising the incomes of the poorest 40 percent in each country—will be much more difficult. Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2020: Reversals of Fortune presents new estimates of COVID-19's impacts on global poverty and shared prosperity. Harnessing fresh data from frontline surveys and economic simulations, it shows that pandemic-related job losses and deprivation worldwide are hitting already poor and vulnerable people hard, while also shifting the profile of global poverty to include millions of 'new poor.' Original analysis included in the report shows that the new poor are more urban, better educated, and less likely to work in agriculture than those living in extreme poverty before COVID-19. It also gives new estimates of the impact of conflict and climate change, and how they overlap. These results are important for targeting policies to safeguard lives and livelihoods. It shows how some countries are acting to reverse the crisis, protect those most vulnerable, and promote a resilient recovery. These findings call for urgent action. If the global response fails the world's poorest and most vulnerable people now, the losses they have experienced to date will be minimal compared with what lies ahead. Success over the long term will require much more than stopping COVID-19. As efforts to curb the disease and its economic fallout intensify, the interrupted development agenda in low- and middle-income countries must be put back on track. Recovering from today's reversals of fortune requires tackling the economic crisis unleashed by COVID-19 with a commitment proportional to the crisis itself. In doing so, countries can also plant the seeds for dealing with the long-term development challenges of promoting inclusive growth, capital accumulation, and risk prevention—particularly the risks of conflict and climate change.

"This Policy Research Report was prepared by the Development Economics Research Group of the World Bank by a team led by Dean Jolliffe and Peter Lanjouw"--Page xiii.

This guide to small area estimation aims to help users compile more reliable granular or disaggregated data in cost-effective ways. It explains small area estimation techniques with examples of how the easily accessible R analytical platform can be used to implement them, particularly to estimate indicators on poverty, employment, and health outcomes. The guide is intended for staff of national statistics offices and for other development practitioners. It aims to help them to develop and implement targeted socioeconomic policies to ensure that the vulnerable segments of societies are not left behind, and to monitor progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals.

This handbook initiates fresh debates on poverty and its impact in a constantly changing Global South society. It studies the concept, theories, and causes of poverty, as well as the design and delivery of social welfare policies related to specific groups, such as women, children, and the elderly. The chapters are theoretical, evidence-based, and empirical in nature and bring together a holistic understanding of social problems and issues in developing countries. The volume brings together researchers, educators, and practitioners from across the globe to develop a hands-on reference work that will be requisite for several social science disciplines concerned with poverty and the welfare of poor people. The first of its kind, the handbook will be indispensable for scholars and researchers of development studies, economics, social work, political studies, poverty studies, population and demographic studies, sociology, social anthropology, public policy, and political economy, especially those concerned with the Global South.

For anyone wanting to learn, in practical terms, how to measure, describe, monitor, evaluate, and analyze poverty, this Handbook is the place to start. It is designed to be accessible to people with a university-level background in science or the social sciences. It is an invaluable tool for policy analysts, researchers, college students, and government officials working on policy issues related to poverty and inequality.