Govt says World Bank poverty figures reflect regional reclassification
- Schehzad said the World Bank’s decision to include Pakistan in the MENAAP reporting region was an administrative and statistical reclassification that had changed the composition of regional aggregates
The government on Thursday said that the World Bank’s finding that the country accounts for nearly half of the extreme poor in its newly defined Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan (MENAAP) region partly reflects a change in the lender’s statistical grouping rather than a shift in Pakistan’s geographical or economic classification.
Adviser to the Finance Minister Khurram Schehzad said the World Bank’s decision to include Pakistan in the MENAAP reporting region was an administrative and statistical reclassification that had changed the composition of regional aggregates.
“It does not alter Pakistan’s geographical identity as a South Asian country, and it does not change Pakistan’s income classification,” Schehzad said in a post on social media platform X.
The World Bank said in its latest MENAAP economic update that Pakistan accounted for 48% of people living below the $3-a-day extreme poverty line in the region in 2024, while Pakistan’s poverty rate had risen by 6.4 percentage points between 2018-19 and 2024-25.
Schehzad said the inclusion of Pakistan, a country with a large population relative to many MENA economies, “will naturally look different from those of the traditional Middle East and North Africa region”.
He cautioned against interpreting the finding that a large share of MENAAP’s poor live in Pakistan as evidence that poverty had suddenly shifted from other countries to Pakistan.
“The correct interpretation is therefore that Pakistan has been reassigned to the World Bank’s MENAAP reporting region,” Schehzad said, adding that regional classifications should not be confused with geography, economic development or national identity.
The World Bank said MENAAP was now the only region where poverty remained above pre-pandemic levels and continued to rise, with Pakistan driving much of the deterioration. It said 14.3% of the region’s population lived on less than $3 a day in 2024, compared with 10.4% globally.
As per the World Bank, Pakistan’s poverty rate rose following a series of shocks, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the devastating 2022 floods, high inflation, currency depreciation and a prolonged period of economic adjustment that weakened real household incomes and employment opportunities.
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