South Asia houses half of world's poor

Among the 104 countries, five nations in South Asia is the home to half of the poor people, according to the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI).

"The 51 per cent of the poor populace live in the five countries of the South Asia," it said. South Asia is followed by Sub-Saharan Africa, while Arab States and Central and Eastern Europe compose only two per cent and one per cent of MPI poor population, respectively.

According to MPI measurement -- an innovative new measure that gives a vivid 'multidimensional' picture of people living in poverty -- 1.7 billion people are living under multidimensional poverty which is greater than World Bank's measure of extreme income poverty that states that 1.3 billion people of the world are living below the daily income of $1.25.

Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and the UNDP Human Development Report has recently launched the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), 65 per cent of Nepalis are suffering from multidimensional poverty indicating that majority of the population is deprived in terms of health, education and maintaining basic standard of living.

However, Nepali economist are doubtful that MPI will able to correctly measure the composition or situation of Nepali poor people, despite the index tapping into different dimensions of poverty besides income and consumption.

"MPI is supposed to give a vivid multidimensional picture of people living in poverty as this delves deep into other factors besides income and consumption pattern to measure poverty," said Dr Sabina Alkire, director of Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, Oxford University.

"It measures the condition of people with respect to a range of deprivations that afflict a person’s life at the same time," she said adding that the measure assesses the nature and intensity of poverty at the individual level in education, health outcomes, and standard of living.

Since this method studies acute poverty, this is more applicable to find the nature of poverty of least developed countries.

MPI assesses the nature and intensity of poverty at the individual level. According to this measure, poor people are those who are multiply deprived and extent of their poverty depends on the extent of deprivations. MPI can be used to identify the most vulnerable people and they can be helped by the national policies. Thus, this will help policy makers to target resources and design policies more effectively.

The MPI measures poverty using 10 key indicators based on three dimensions – health, education and standard of living. The ten indicators directly measures deprivations in health and educational outcomes as well as key services such as water, sanitation, and electricity reveal not only how many people are poor but also the composition of their poverty. Among these indicators eight are related to Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), thus MPI also demonstrates the direction the countries are taking in the matter of attaining MDGs.

The UNDP's 20th Anniversary edition of Human Development Report -- to be released in November will be based on the MPI reflecting a range of deprivations that afflict a person’s life at the same time.