Benin’s development profile combines rapid economic growth with persistent challenges in poverty, employment quality, health, education, water, and sanitation. Recent figures from the World Bank, UNCTAD, UNICEF, and WHO describe a country of roughly 14.5 million people, with strong recent growth but uneven access to essential services.
Contents
- Population and human development
- Economic growth, prices, and poverty
- Employment, trade, and investment
- Health and child survival
- Education and child development
- Water, sanitation, and basic services
Population and human development
The World Bank recorded Benin’s population at 14.5 million in 2024. UNCTAD’s General Profile for Benin gives a more precise 2024 estimate of 14.463 million, while the WHO Data Benin page reports 14,111,034 people in 2023. These figures refer to different reporting sources and years, so they should not be treated as a single independently harmonized population series.
Benin covered 112,760 km2 in 2024, according to the UNCTAD General Profile Benin. The same profile reported an exchange rate of 606.344 XOF per US dollar and current GDP of US$21,183 million in 2024. These figures provide scale for interpreting the country’s development indicators, but current-dollar GDP is not a measure of household welfare by itself.
The World Bank page reported a Human Development Index of 0.515 for 2023, up from 0.351 in 1990. It described that change as 46.7% growth over the 1990–2023 period. Over the same period, life expectancy at birth increased by 7.8 years, expected years of schooling increased by 5.6 years, mean years of schooling increased by 1.7 years, and gross national income per capita increased by about 70.9%.
More recent World Bank figures put life expectancy at 61.2 years in 2024. That was an increase of 0.5 years from 60.7 years in 2023. The World Bank also recorded a fertility rate of 5.7 children per woman in 2024, an important demographic indicator when assessing pressure on schools, health services, employment, and household resources.
Economic growth, prices, and poverty
Benin’s recent output growth was strong. The World Bank reported growth of 7.5% in 2024 and 8.0% over the first three quarters of 2025. UNCTAD’s General Profile Benin reported 2024 GDP growth of 6.20%. The difference reflects the sources’ reporting frameworks and measurement periods; the figures should be read as separate published indicators rather than combined into one rate.
Inflation was relatively low in the World Bank’s 2024–2025 figures. Headline inflation was 1.2% in 2024 and 1.1% in 2025, while food inflation was 3.4% in 2025. Food inflation can affect household purchasing power even when the overall headline measure is lower, because food is a necessary part of daily spending.
The national poverty rate was 36.2% in 2021–2022, according to the World Bank. The same source reported that poverty had fallen by 2.3 percentage points compared with 2018–2019. Because these are survey-period measures, they describe living conditions during the stated periods rather than a current-year poverty estimate.
The World Bank reported that Benin’s fiscal deficit reached the West African Economic and Monetary Union target of 3% of GDP in 2025. The reported result places the deficit at the stated regional target, but it does not by itself describe the level or quality of public services, debt affordability, or household welfare.
World Bank Group commitments for Benin stood at $3.3 billion. They included $3.0 billion for 16 national projects and $300 million for seven regional projects. These are commitments, not the same as funds already spent or the value of completed development outcomes.
Employment, trade, and investment
The World Bank reported unemployment of 2.4%, alongside underemployment affecting 72% of the labor force. It also reported that 90.1% of workers were employed in the informal sector. Taken together, these measures show why a low unemployment rate does not necessarily mean that most workers have stable, adequately paid, or protected employment.
UNCTAD reported the following 2024 trade and investment figures:
| Indicator | 2024 value |
|---|---|
| Merchandise exports | US$3,772 million |
| Merchandise imports | US$5,230 million |
| Merchandise trade balance | -US$1,458 million |
| Services exports | US$495 million |
| Services imports | US$1,413 million |
| Services trade balance | -US$918 million |
| Foreign direct investment inflows | US$543.01 million |
| Foreign direct investment outflows | US$60.28 million |
The UNCTAD General Profile Benin also reported a total trade balance of -8.39% of GDP and -29.40% of imports in 2024. Its normalized trade balance was -0.172. Personal remittances equaled 0.94% of GDP. These indicators describe the external position using different denominators, so the percentages are not interchangeable with the dollar trade balances above.
The merchant fleet under Benin’s national flag was 3 thousand deadweight tonnes in 2024. ICT goods represented 0.18% of total exports and 2.37% of total imports. The contrast indicates that ICT goods had a larger reported share on the import side than on the export side, without establishing the value or composition of the wider digital economy.
Several development projects target productive capacity and inclusion. The Agricultural Competitiveness and Export Diversification Support Project was valued at $160 million, and its June 2024 additional financing was $150 million. The World Bank reported that the project would support development of 3,000 hectares for irrigated rice and vegetable production and had reached 592,512 beneficiaries to date.
The World Bank reported that nearly 6 million people received the fID certificate free of charge under the West Africa Unique Identification for Regional Integration and Inclusion project. IFC’s Benin Terminal expansion added 15 hectares of storage space and was expected to increase static container storage capacity by about 33%. IFC support for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises aimed to extend financial services to 2,000 individuals and businesses, including 300 women-owned enterprises. In 2025, an average of 10 companies received training in financial and accounting management.
Health and child survival
WHO Data Benin reported current health expenditure of 2.58% of GDP in 2021. This is a dated health-financing measure and should not be read as a 2024 or 2025 spending estimate.
UNICEF’s Benin country profile reported an under-five mortality rate of 75 deaths per 1,000 live births and 35,304 under-five deaths. Infant mortality was 45 deaths per 1,000 live births, while neonatal mortality was 27 deaths per 1,000 live births. The profile also reported female under-five mortality of 69 deaths per 1,000 live births and male under-five mortality of 80 deaths per 1,000 live births.
Child health coverage remains mixed in the UNICEF indicators. Ninety percent of pregnant women living with HIV received effective antiretroviral medicines for prevention of mother-to-child transmission, and 2,500 children aged 0–14 years were receiving antiretroviral treatment. Among surviving infants, 63% received the third dose of a DTP-containing vaccine. Thirty-five percent of under-five children with acute respiratory infection symptoms sought advice or treatment from a health facility or provider, while 15% of under-five children with diarrhoea received oral rehydration solution.
Nutrition indicators show additional gaps. UNICEF reported that 33% of under-five children had height-for-age below -2 standard deviations, classified as stunting. Two-dose vitamin A supplementation coverage was 7%. Twenty-five percent of infants began breastfeeding early, and 45% of children aged 0–5 months were exclusively breastfed. Eighty-three percent of tested households consumed iodized salt above 0 parts per million.
In prevention, 50% of under-five children slept under an insecticide-treated mosquito net on the night before the survey, and 58% of households had at least one such net. These are survey-based observations, so they describe the measured reference period rather than a universal permanent condition.
Education and child development
UNICEF reported that 13% of children aged 36–59 months attended an early childhood education programme. Among children aged 24–59 months, 39% had an adult household member engage in four or more early stimulation activities during the previous three days. Twenty-nine percent of children under five were left alone or supervised by a child younger than 10 for more than one hour at least once in the previous week.
School participation declined across the reported stages. Forty-eight percent of children were enrolled one year before the official primary entry age, and adjusted net attendance was 68% for primary-school-age children. It was 30% for lower-secondary-school-age adolescents and 12% for upper-secondary-school-age youth. The primary-school completion rate was 48%, while the youth literacy rate for ages 15–24 was 61%.
| Education indicator | Share or rate |
|---|---|
| Enrolled one year before official primary entry age | 48% |
| Adjusted net primary attendance | 68% |
| Adjusted net lower-secondary attendance | 30% |
| Adjusted net upper-secondary attendance | 12% |
| Primary-school completion | 48% |
| Youth literacy, ages 15–24 | 61% |
The UNICEF profile also reported that 93% of children under five had births registered. Birth registration is a civil-status indicator that can support access to identity documents and public services, but the percentage does not measure the quality or speed of the registration process.
Protection indicators were serious. Twenty-eight percent of women aged 20–24 were married or in union before age 18. Twenty percent of children aged 5–17 were engaged in child labour, and 88% of children aged 1–14 experienced physical punishment and/or psychological aggression by caregivers. Twenty-nine percent of women aged 15–49 said that a husband is justified in hitting or beating his wife for at least one reason. Nine percent of girls and women aged 15–49 had undergone female genital mutilation.
Water, sanitation, and basic services
UNICEF’s service indicators distinguish safely managed, basic, limited, unimproved, and surface-water categories. Eighteen percent of the population used safely managed drinking-water services, 52% used basic drinking-water services, and 70% used at least basic drinking-water services. Seven percent used limited drinking-water services, 20% used unimproved drinking-water sources, and 3% used surface water.
Sanitation coverage was lower. Sixteen percent of the population used safely managed sanitation services, 6% used basic sanitation services, and 22% used at least basic sanitation services. Twenty-one percent used limited sanitation services. These categories should be kept separate: “at least basic” includes basic and safely managed service levels, while limited, unimproved, and surface-water or open-defecation categories are not equivalent measures of safe access.
The World Bank’s Social Safety Net Strengthening Program was expected to benefit at least 150,000 people. The World Bank reported that this represented 61% of the extremely poor households listed in the Single Social Register. The figure identifies the program’s stated reach among a defined register population; it is not a national poverty-coverage rate.
For readers using development statistics to understand travel documents, public administration, or daily conditions in Benin, the central picture is therefore multidimensional: population and life expectancy have increased over the long term, recent growth has been strong, and major investments are under way, while informal work, child survival, school progression, sanitation, and safe water remain important measures of development progress.