Africa-Press – South-Sudan. South Sudan has been ranked as the world’s poorest country by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita in 2025 in the world-based data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as reported and published by Visual Capitalist.
The IMF’s list of the 50 poorest countries by GDP per capita shows that the majority of low-income nations remain concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa, that are faced with persistent challenges such as conflict, weak institutions, climate vulnerability, and low investment in infrastructure and education.
Gross Domestic Product per capita offers a quick litmus test of how wealth is generated per person within a country.
By dividing total economic output by population, it levels the playing field between nations of very different sizes.
South Sudan tops the list as the world’s poorest country with a GDP per capita of $251, followed by Yemen, Burundi, the Central African Republic, and Malawi.
The report comes as a new report from the African Development Bank (AfDB) revealed that an alarming 92 per cent of South Sudan’s population now lives in poverty.
According to the report, the country’s economy has significantly declined due to a combination of factors, including a drop in oil exports and persistent insecurity.
The report indicates a distressing rise in poverty, from 84 per cent in 2023 to 92 per cent in 2024, with projections suggesting the trend could worsen further this year.
This deepening crisis is highlighted by severe food insecurity: between April and July 2025 – the lean season – an estimated 7.7 million people (57% of the total population) are projected to be food insecure.
Adding to the urgency, the World Bank Economic Monitor report for 2025 projects that poverty in South Sudan will become universal by the end of 2025 unless current macroeconomic and insecurity trends are decisively addressed and reversed.
Central African Republic’s GDP per capita stands at $532, Malawi at $580, Madagascar at $595, and Sudan $625, and are among the bottom ten.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation and largest economy by overall GDP, appears surprisingly low on the list at number 12, with a per capita GDP of $807.
Other notable entries include Somalia ($766), Liberia ($908), Mali ($936), Chad ($991), Rwanda ($1,043), and Ethiopia ($1,066).
Although many Asian countries have seen steady improvement in income levels over the past decade, some of them feature on the list, with Myanmar ($1,177), Nepal ($1,458), and India ($2,878) making appearances.
India is the highest-ranked country on the list, slightly above Côte d’Ivoire at $2,872, Cambodia at $2,870, and the Kyrgyz Republic at $2,747.
The data indicates that large populations and uneven wealth distribution weighed down per capita income figures even in growing economies.
GDP per capita doesn’t account for local prices, currency exchange rates, or distribution variance within the country because there’s also a more existential question of whether economic output can be equated to wealth.
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