On November 3, a guest on the OK Morning Rush, Frank Gibson – who is a staunched support of President George Weah – claimed that the living condition in Liberia is better than neighboring countries like Guinea and Sierra Leone. He cited the World Bank as reliance for making the claim.
The Claim
His exact words were: “50.1% of Liberians are living below the poverty line while 53.6% of Sierra Leoneans and 52.2% of Guineans are living below the poverty line”.
Rating Justification
The World Bank updated the global poverty lines to US$2.15 in September 2022. This new figure replaces the 1.90 poverty line which was based on 2017 purchasing power parity (PPPs).
According to the World Bank, PPP conversion factor is the number of units of a country’s currency required to buy the same amounts of goods and services in the domestic market as U.S. dollar would buy in the United States. This conversion factor is for private consumption (i.e., household final consumption expenditure).
To fact check this claim, we researched the three countries’ latest poverty rate from the World Bank and other credible sources and conclude that Mr. Gibson’s did not get his facts right.
On Page 14 of this report by the World Bank titled “Getting Rice Right for Productivity and Poverty Alleviation” published in June 2023, Liberia’s international poverty rate (US$2.15 PPP) decreased to 35.5 percent in 2022. This means 35.5% or 1.8 million Liberians are currently living in poverty. Liberia has a population of 5.2 million people.
The report shows that following two consecutive years (2019 and 2020) of contraction and elevated inflation, the rebound in growth and decline of inflation in 2021 and 2022, boosted private consumption per capita and helped reduce poverty rates.
Also, on Page 29 of this report, the World Bank projected Sierra Leone’s poverty rate using the standard international poverty line (US$2.15 per person/day at 2017 PPP) to 24.6% by 2025.
In the Bank’s latest report in October 2023, it says the country’s current population living below the $2.15 poverty line is 25% or 2.2 million people. Sierra Leone’s current population is about 8.8 million people.
In Guinea, 43.7% or 5.8million of the population lived below the national poverty line in 2018. The World Bank projected the number to increase to 50.1% or 6.9 million people. This means, in 2022, about 6.9 million of the a total of over 13.205 Guineans were living in Poverty, according to Worldometer.info.
Conclusion
Based on these findings, we conclude that the claim made by Frank Gibson that living condition in Liberia is better than Guinea and Sierra Leone is incorrect.
The data Mr. Gibson provided are incorrect and do not represent the latest data according to the World Bank.
From the World Bank latest data, 35% or 1.8 million Liberians are currently living below the $2.15 International Poverty line or extreme poverty while 50.1% or 6.9 million Guineans and 25% or 2.2 million Sierra Leoneans are living in poverty or below the International poverty line of $2.15, according to the latest World Bank data.
This report was developed with the support of Internews through the USAID Media Activity project. The funder has no say in the editorial decision leading to the production of this content