The poorest countries in the world might not be as obvious as you may have assumed. However, if you figured that every country that is listed as one of the poorest countries in the world is also a third world country, or a nation with a public debt problem, then you are not that far from the truth. While there are instances in which the two overlap, it is not fair to automatically assume that all of the poorest countries in the world are also underdeveloped. This is mostly due to the negative connotations associated with countries classified as third world nations.

According to the news outlet, USA Today, the top twenty-five poorest countries in the world and world population review

1.Liberia (GNI per capita: $710)
2. The Central African Republic (GNI per capita: $730)
3, Burundi (GNI per capita: $770)
4. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (GNI per capita: $870)
5. Niger (GNI per capita: $990)
6. Malawi (GNI per capita: $1,180)
7. Mozambique (GNI per capita: $1,200)
8. Sierra Leone (GNI per capita: $1,480)
9. Madagascar (GNI per capita: $1,510)
10. Comoros (GNI per capita: $1,570)
11. Togo (GNI per capita: $1,620)
12. The Gambia (GNI per capita: $1,670
13. Guinea-Bissau (GNI per capita: $1,700)
14. Burkina Faso (GNI per capita: $1,810)
15. Uganda (GNI per capita: $1,820)
16. Haiti (GNI per capita: $1,830)
17. Zimbabwe (GNI per capita: $1,850)
18. Ethiopia (GNI per capita: $1,890)
19. Chad (GNI per capita: $1,920)
20. Rwanda (GNI per capita: $1,990)
21. Afghanistan (GNI per capita: $2,000)
22. Mali (GNI per capita: $2,160)
23. Guinea (GNI per capita: $2,180)
24. Benin (GNI per capita: $2,260)
25. Solomon Islands

The only country that did not make it onto both lists is the African country of Zimbabwe. All the other twenty-four poorest countries are also third world countries, which goes to show that the two characteristics do have some common ground between them. If you think about it, money is not everything but it does allow for a basic level of upkeep. As unfortunate as it is, everything in the world needs money in order to uphold a certain level of care and maintenance.

Money is not solely for the purpose of elaborate funding or exuberance. The hardest part about a world that revolves around money is that it becomes a necessity, to the point where countries cannot sustain a basic state of cleanliness, invest in industries that could help the country flourish, or develop certain attributes that would elevate a developing country to a place of prosperity. It takes an awful lot of time, energy, and money to raise a country from the ground up, and without a national budget that is reasonable, countries fall short of funding.

The physical location of a country also has a lot to do with the wealth — as well as the lack thereof — of a country. The reason for this pulls the aspect of underdeveloped governments, systems, and infrastructures in a country into play. See, the financial status of a country has nearly everything to do with a nation’s GDP, or gross domestic product. This is a value that correlates to the monetary value of a country’s goods, services, and products over the course of a year.

So the GDP of every country is calculated annually, and it is very similar to credit scores in a sense, albeit on a much larger scale. Still, the GDP of nation has the potential to severely mess with a country’s future, as does a poor credit score for people like you and me. The gross domestic product of a country is such a heavy influential factor, and a poor GDP can do quite a load of damage to a country’s economy. When a country has a low GDP value, other nations do not revere the low-ranking country as worth doing business with at any level.

This has been the cause of great division between countries because it starts to create a sort of divide between countries with impressively high GDP values and countries with GDP values that are everything but admirable. It is rather unfortunate, especially because this outlook makes it that much harder for countries with low GDP values to make a comeback. If you have ever experienced the downward spiral of credit card debt and lower-than-preferred credit scores, then the GDP might register with you on a level that is easier to understand from that perspective.

Here are the twenty-five poorest countries in the world alongside their most recent gross domestic product values. There are technically three different GDP values for each country, and the reason for this is that three separate organizations release lists that rank countries by GDP values based on their own calculations. These organizations are…

The International Monetary Fund
The United Nations
The World Bank