When I was younger and kept track of such things, the poorest country in the world was Bangladesh, but back then, France and other European countries were heavily involved in African countries. Since it has been deemed politically incorrect for European countries to have colonies in Africa, and they've mostly pulled out, the finances of once fairly strong African economies have taken a nosedive. There's no doubt the poorest country in the world is one of the formerly prosperous African countries. The only reason I don't believe it's Haiti is Haiti has made a cottage industry of collecting huge sums of aid from westernized countries every time it has a biological or weather-related calamity, which doesn't seem to be all that infrequent.