MANIPULATION: World Bank, UN “argue” how many poor people to be in Ukraine by end of 2022 – 70 or 90%

According to the information spread on the Internet, the World Bank and the UN are “arguing” over how many poor people there will be in Ukraine by the end of 2022 – 70 or 90%.

However, this is a manipulation. It is incorrect to compare the estimates of the World Bank and the UN.

The World Bank points out that Ukraine’s poverty rate could reach 70% in 2022 at the national poverty rate. For comparison, according to the World Bank, it reached 18% in 2021.

The UNDP (United Nations Development Program) considers four possible scenarios. According to the worst-case scenario, the rate of those living under the poverty line and those who can cross the poverty line could reach 90.5% if the war drags on over the next year. 28% out of these 90.5% may be at high risk falling back into poverty, and 62.5% may cross the poverty line, according to the UN worst estimates. Before the war, according to the UN, 2% of the population of Ukraine lived under the poverty line, and 43.4% might cross the poverty line.

According to three other UN scenarios, the rate of those living under the poverty line and those who may cross the poverty line may be 53.8% (4.2% under the poverty line and 49.7% may cross the line), 60.9% ( 6.4% and 54.5% accordingly) or 64.5% (9% and 55.5%).

At the same time, the UN takes into account the international poverty rate – $ 5.5 / day (for those who can cross the poverty line – from $5.5 to 13/day) – and not national, as in the World Bank. The national indicator is the number of people living on the less than the actual minimum living wage.

In addition, estimates by the World Bank and the United Nations are based on assumptions that the war will last several months. Moreover, the forecast is based on the moment when active hostilities were still going on in the north of Ukraine. However, the course of the war is changing almost everyday, so any predictions at the early stage are still difficult to make. Over time, we will see that the assessments of international organizations will be constantly changing. The state of the Ukrainian economy will largely depend on the actions of the government and Ukrainians.