The number of people living in acute multidimensional poverty has reached 1.2 billion — a rise of 51.5 million and the first increase recorded since the Global MPI was launched in 2010. A new UNDP and Oxford University report finds that more than half of those affected are children, and that regional neighbour Tajikistan is among the few countries to have cut both poverty rates and total numbers of deprived people.
A joint study by UNDP and the Anti-Corruption Agency, presented at a Tashkent roundtable on 25 May 2026, found that healthcare and education are the sectors where women are most exposed to corruption, while nearly 70% of respondents linked informal social practices to the spread of corrupt behaviour.
