Extreme Poverty in Cameroon: 1800 to Today (and Tomorrow)

To understand the story of Cameroon is to measure the progress of human security against the baseline of extreme poverty. Defining this as living on less than $2.15/day, 2017 PPP, reveals the material limits of history. For generations, the vast majority of the population navigated a world where basic needs remained perpetually out of reach. Today, that number stands at 35 %, yet this figure masks the immense individual effort required to build a stable life when one of every three people still lives below the international extreme poverty line.

For the entirety of the 1800s, the rate of extreme poverty remained constant at 80 %. The 1900s marked the beginning of a long, slow transition. While the early decades saw only fractional movement, the latter half of the twentieth century accelerated the decline. By the 1960s, the rate had reached 68.33 %, falling further to 55 % by the 1980s. This trajectory continues today, with projections suggesting the figure could drop to 3.5 % by the 2100s, fundamentally altering the country’s demographic landscape.

If you were born in Cameroon during the 1800s, your daily reality was defined by an 80 % probability of living in extreme poverty. Such a statistic implies a life dominated by the immediate struggle for resources. For a child born in the 2020s, the environment is statistically different, as the rate has dropped to 35 %, ranking the nation #125 of 157 countries. While these projections suggest a more prosperous future, the data serves as a cold reminder of the human scale of economic change across three centuries.

Use our interactive tool to see where you rank among everyone ever born.