The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to cause the worst economic crisis in decades among least developed countries, a leading United Nations economist said on Thursday, warning that more than 32 million people globally could slip back into extreme poverty due to the effects of the health crisis.

"We project that absolute poverty indices will expand by 32 million, and extreme poverty rates in these countries will rise from 32.5 per cent to 35.7 in the current year," said Mukhisa Kituyi, UNCTAD Secretary-General, during a virtual press conference.

According to the UN, 1.06 billion people live in 47 least developed countries (LDCs), which account for less than 1.3 per cent of global economic turnover.

The agency defines extreme poverty as having an income lower than $1.90 per day.

Many countries around the world have been forced to shift their financial focus on the fight against COVID-19, at times affecting funding for projects aimed at alleviating poverty and development.

Kituyi noted that those countries which had invested most in boosting production capacity were the ones that were likely to weather the global downturn.

The development of productive capacity had been "too small" in most LDCs which have now "fallen behind" other developing countries, he explained.

"Structural transformation in the LDCs has been restricted to just a handful of countries like Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal and Rwanda. Only in these small handful of LDCs have we experienced sufficient industrial growth and an expansion of modern services sectors, leading to stronger labour productivity gains."

He also noted that most African LDCs and Haiti have seen much smaller structural change, where agriculture and other traditional activities were likely to see continuing low levels of economic growth and lead to little improvement in people's living standards.

Kituyi's comments came as the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases globally surpassed the 64.57 million mark with a death toll exceeding 1.49 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University.