Global poverty remains stubbornly persistent. The just-released 2025 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) report delivers a hard truth: the world is losing the war on poverty. In previous years, as I blogged earlier here, the number of people living in acute multidimensional poverty has hovered above 1 billion, and nothing much has changed today: 1.1 billion people across 109 countries are still multidimensionally poor, according to the 2025 Global MPI report. What is most troubling about poverty’s stubborn persistence is that it is disproportionately affecting children. The 2022, 2023, and 2024 Global MPI reports all highlighted this alarming trend, and today, as the 2025 Global MPI report reveals, children account for more than 50% of those living in multidimensional poverty.

It is now starkly clear that the global goal of ending poverty by 2030 (SDG 1) is beyond reach, a concern I discussed in a piece (on Open Access here) commissioned by  SAGE’s International Journal of Community and Social Development ahead of the Second Summit on Social Development, to be held next month (November) in Doha. Even more unsettling is the fact that global poverty has not only persisted but evolved, shifted geographically and is poised to be more defiant than ever.

How has poverty evolved

For decades, poverty has primarily been associated with a lack of income and/or basic needs. This no longer holds true. Admittedly, income and basic-needs deprivations remain a challenge, but the lack of access to clean cooking has quietly become the defining face of poverty. Indeed, according to the 2025 Global MPI report, of the 1.1 billion people living in acute multidimensional poverty across 109 countries, 970 million rely on unclean cooking fuels. This was as of the previous year, 2024.  The global picture is even more disconcerting. About 2.1 billion people worldwide still depend on unclean cooking fuels and inefficient cookstoves, and if current efforts continue at the same pace, 1.8 billion people will still lack access to clean cooking by 2030, as reported here. As highlighted in the 2025 Global MPI report, cooking poverty is more pronounced in middle-income countries. Of the 970 million out of 1.1 billion multidimensionally poor people suffering from cooking poverty, 61.7% live in these countries. Current clean cooking efforts are, however, more concentrated in low-income countries. 

Yet this new face of poverty remains underrecognised, hiding in plain sight despite being laid bare by successive Global MPI reports. It is underprioritised, underfunded and under-measured in policy responses. It is encouraging, nonetheless, that private carbon-trading companies are stepping into the clean cooking space. However, as I have observed in my current research and also reported here and here, their impact is constrained by low adoption rates. In many cases, for example, the numbers reported as “households reached” may reflect distribution rather than the consistent or sustained use of clean cooking fuels and improved stoves. Moreover, the current bias toward treating poverty eradication primarily as a matter of improving income and access to basic needs reinforces the neglect of this emerging face of poverty.

Poverty’s New Geography

Historically, poverty was largely concentrated in low-income countries. But this has changed, as acute multidimensional poverty has now shifted towards middle-income countries.  According to the 2025 Global MPI report, middle-income countries are now the epicentre, albeit hidden, of acute multidimensional poverty, as 64.5% of the 1.1 billion people living in acute multidimensional poverty across 109 countries reside there. This geographical shift in global poverty reveals a sobering truth: economic growth alone is not enough to end poverty. Growth must be complemented by sustained investments in human development to ensure that prosperity translates into real progress for all.

When Climate and Poverty Collide – the dangerous double burden

Climate change is worsening global poverty. It is, as I blogged earlier here, impacting the lives and livelihoods of people in unprecedented ways, and the poor are bearing the brunt. The 2025 Global MPI report reveals that nearly 80% of the world’s poor are exposed to climate hazards such as floods, droughts and extreme heat, and they experience two or more hazards simultaneously.  Climate change is therefore now a poverty multiplier as it is trapping the poor in poverty and derailing poverty eradication efforts. The result is a devastating feedback loop in which poverty and climate reinforce one another.

The wake-up call we can’t afford to ignore

The stubborn persistence of global poverty – primarily affecting children, taking on a new face through cooking poverty, shifting to middle-income countries, and compounded by the relentless pressure of climate change – therefore demands that we rethink what it means to fight poverty today and truly win the battle. It calls for:

Putting the eradication of child poverty at the heart of global poverty reduction efforts: This does not mean simply giving children money, enrolling them in school, or addressing their health needs, as is the norm. Rather, it requires approaching child poverty through its multidimensional and complex nature.  It also calls for the embrace of tools such as the Child Multidimensional Poverty Index (Child MPI) so as to better measure and fully understand the scope of child deprivation (see my earlier blog about this here). After all, studies  consistently show that success in eradicating poverty as a whole begins with uprooting child poverty in societies, as seen here and here, for example.

Starting in the kitchen, making it soot-free:

Every time we see soot in a kitchen, it is a stark reminder of the new face of poverty. Promoting clean cooking worldwide, not only in low-income countries, is therefore essential, and pays significant dividends as it also helps to eradicate other forms of poverty, as I blogged earlier here. Significantly, it is about more than just distributing improved cookstoves or making clean fuels available. True progress requires adoption, which is achieved by investing in behavioural change. I look forward to sharing more on this issue from my current global review of the adoption of improved cookstoves.

Eradicating poverty everywhere – in low-, middle-, and high-income countries alike:  Poverty is no longer confined to the world’s low-income nations; it is increasingly concentrated in middle-income countries and even persists in wealthier ones, such as the UK ( see here and here), America (see here) and Australia (see here). Global poverty eradication should, therefore, be universal in scope. Thankfully, with Sustainable Development Goal 1 (Ending poverty in all its forms everywhere), the world has already recognised this truth. Notwithstanding, there remains a long way to go to ensure that the urgency and intensity applied to poverty eradication in low-income countries are extended to middle- and high-income countries as well. It is equally important to rethink how poverty is conceptualised and measured in middle- and high-income countries. The prevailing tendency to define poverty as relative – as is often the case in wealthier nations – may, in fact, fuel its persistence. You do not need to compare your life to your neighbour’s to know you are living in poverty. Poverty is not relative, and it never was, as I have argued here, and as Amartya Sen has also emphasised here and here.

Adopting an integrated approach to combating poverty and climate change, as I blogged earlier here and the 2025 Global MPI report reveals, since a siloed approach to tackling poverty and climate change will not effectively address either challenge. As stressed earlier, climate change and poverty are now deeply intertwined. As such, only by integrating poverty eradication and climate action can the world achieve sustainable progress in combating both. This has become easier than ever before with the advent of Nature-based Solutions (NbS), which offer pathways to address environmental challenges and poverty simultaneously. In my recent Springer Nature article, freely available here, I discussed in detail how NbS could play a transformative role in eradicating poverty in all its forms.

As the world heads towards the Second Summit on Social Development (Doha, 2025) and continues to pursue the goal of ending poverty in all its forms by 2030, it is essential to recognise the stubborn persistence of poverty – and to understand that it is no longer concentrated where we think it is, nor does it look as we once imagined. In my SAGE-commissioned article, as well as earlier blog posts – see here,  here , here and here, for example – I explored many of the ideas discussed above, and others, in greater detail.