Context

• Recently, Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2020 was released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI).

Key Findings:

• India lifted as many as 270 million people out of multidimensional poverty between 2005-06 and 2015-16.
• 3 billion people are still living in multidimensional poverty. More than 80% are deprived in at least five of the ten indicators used to measure health, education and living standards in the global MPI.
• The burden of multidimensional poverty disproportionately falls on children– half of multidimensionally poor people are children under age 18.
• 65 out of 75 countries studied significantly reduced their multidimensional poverty levels between 2000 and 2019.
• About 3% of multidimensionally poor people live in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
• 67% of multidimensionally poor people are in middle-income countries.

Back to Basics:

About Multidimensional Poverty Index

• The Multidimensional Poverty Index was launched by the UNDP and the OPHI in
• MPI is based on the idea that poverty is not unidimensional (not just depends on income and one individual may lack several basic needs like education, health), rather it is multidimensional.
• The index shows the proportion of poor people and the average number of deprivations each poor person experiences at the same time.
• MPI uses three dimensions and ten indicators which are:
  • Education:Years of schooling and child enrollment (1/6 weightage each, total 2/6);
  • Health:Child mortality and nutrition (1/6 weightage each, total 2/6);
  • Standard of living:Electricity, flooring, drinking water, sanitation, cooking fuel and assets (1/18 weightage each, total 2/6)

Source: Indian Express, TH