Global poverty, religious restrictions, discrimination against women remain high, report says

(OSV News) -- More than a quarter of the global population still lacks access to seven basic needs identified as fundamental by the late Pope Francis -- with close to 60% living in nations with severe restrictions on religious freedom, and more than half of the world's women living in countries with severe sex-based discrimination, according to a new report from Fordham University.

In addition, a majority of those represented by the statistics live on the African continent, as well as in some Asian nations.

The data was made public in the university's "Pope Francis Global Poverty Report," released Nov. 14 ahead of World Day of the Poor, observed Nov. 16.

The annual observance, instituted in 2016 by Pope Francis in his apostolic letter "Misericordia et Misera," takes place on the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, which in 2025 fell on Nov. 16.

The Fordham report, prepared by that school's Graduate Program in International Political Economy and Development, or IPED, assesses the Global Poverty Gap, defined as the world average of the relevant population without adequate water, food, housing, employment, education, gender equality and religious freedom.

Those seven basic human needs were highlighted by Pope Francis in his 2015 address to the United Nations General Assembly.

The Fordham Francis Index -- which first combines data from those seven indicators into a Material Welfare Index and a Spiritual Freedom Index -- "is a more pro-poor index," wrote Fordham's IPED director, economics professor Henry Schwalbenberg, in the report's foreword.

Schwalbenberg explained the index emphasizes the "basic material human needs of the most marginalized," while also featuring "a more pro-freedom index with its incorporation of civil liberties into its measure of spiritual freedom."

In addition, the index is "a more robust measure of integral human development," he wrote.
The report -- which drew on data from organizations such as the United Nations and the World Bank -- found that "based on the most recently available data for the year 2025, the Global Poverty Gap is 25.5%."

That number is "unchanged from the previous year," the report said, noting that the COVID-19 pandemic had worsened the figure until 2022, with "the beginning of a recovery" indicated in 2023.

"However, this recovery has stalled since 2024," said the report.

The most recently available data shows that 8.8% of the world's population, or some 707 million people, lack "an improved drinking water source," one that provides clean, readily accessible water "with collection time not exceeding 30 minutes for a round-trip, including queuing," said the report.

Topping the list of the 10 most deprived nations for such water access is Congo, followed by Central African Republic, South Sudan, Niger and Burkina Faso.

As of 2022, approximately 9.1% of the global population, or 730 million, were undernourished, said the report, citing data from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

More than half of the populations of Somalia (51.3%) and Haiti (50.4%) were undernourished, with just under 40% of the populations of Madagascar (39.7%), Yemen (39.5%), Liberia (38.4%) and Zimbabwe (38.1%) suffering from lack of nourishment. Congo (37%), Uganda (36.9%), Zambia (35.4%) and Chad (35.1%) rounded out the top 10 list.

About 1.3 billion people, or 16.4% of the global population, live in "sub-standard housing," defined in the report as structures with floor, walls or roofs made of "natural materials" such as earth, mud or dung -- or lacking a roof or walls altogether.

An overwhelming majority of the population of Chad (80.4%, or 15.5 million) reside in such inadequate structures, said the report. Central African Republic (75.5%), Burundi (70.6%), Mauritania (69.5%) and Ethiopia (67.5%) were also listed in the top five nations for substandard housing, with Afghanistan (61.6%) ranking seventh.

The report found that 21.4% of the world's labor force, some 810 million adults, "lack paid employment above subsistence-level wages," a calculation that used the International Labor Organization's figure of $3.65 per day as the minimum needed to be sustained without assistance. The metric accounts for differences and prices among countries, the report noted.

Madagascar (89%), Congo (87.2%) and Malawi (86%) accounted for the highest population percentages in this category.

The Fordham researchers estimated that 767 million adults, or about 12.6% of the global adult population, were illiterate in 2023, based on the Adult Illiteracy Rate, a figure representing those age 15 and older who "who cannot read, write, and comprehend a simple statement about their everyday life." Chad (72.7%), Mali (69%), Burkina Faso (65.5%), South Sudan (65.5%) and Afghanistan (63%) were the leading nations in this category -- although the report noted that "both the illiteracy rate and the total number of illiterate adults have continued to decline since 2019."

More than half (51.3%) of the world's women -- 2 billion -- "live in countries with severe discrimination against women," said the report, with "a significant rise in global gender discrimination against women since 2014."

The report authors used the Health and Survival Index, which combines both sex ratio at birth and healthy life expectancy. Azerbaijan, China, Vietnam, Qatar, India and Afghanistan ranked as the most deprived nations for women, scoring between just 0.93 to 095 on the World Economic Forum's health and survival index.

Fordham also estimated that in 2022, "more than 4.7 billion people" -- roughly 59% of the global population -- were living in countries where religious freedom was severely restricted. The report used Pew Research Center's Government Restrictions Index as a metric, saying "it also accounts for the role of government institutions in promoting or deterring religious freedom."

Topping Fordham's list of the most restrictive nations for religion was China, followed by Egypt, Afghanistan and Iran.

Indonesia, Syria and Russia ranked fifth, sixth and seventh, with Algeria and Azerbaijan ranking eighth and ninth. Malaysia and Uzbekistan tied for 10th on the list.

Not included was North Korea, which has been named by a number of religious persecution watchdog organizations, such as Open Doors International, as one of the top nations for religious repression.

In an email to OSV News, Schwalbenberg confirmed that North Korea -- a highly restrictive nation, named by the U.S. State Department as "one of the worst religious freedom violators in the world in 2024" -- had been "omitted because of the lack of data."

Schwalbenberg added, "This omission would imply that we are underestimating restrictions on religious freedom. In any case we are still estimating the majority of the world’s population to be living in countries with severe restrictions on religious freedoms."

In his message for the 2025 World Day of the Poor, Pope Leo XIV said, "The poor are not a distraction for the Church, but our beloved brothers and sisters, for by their lives, their words and their wisdom, they put us in contact with the truth of the Gospel."

"God took on their poverty in order to enrich us through their voices, their stories and their faces," he said. "Every form of poverty, without exception, calls us to experience the Gospel concretely and to offer effective signs of hope."