MPI report for India: 415 mn out of poverty, but with still the highest number of poor children
The latest edition of the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) was released on Monday, October 17, which compares acute multidimensional poverty for 111 countries in developing regions. These 111 countries are home to three-fourths of the world’s population, of whom the 2022 MPI has identified 19.1 per cent (1.2 billion) as “multidimensionally poor”.
The report was prepared by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
As for India, the report says that the “reduction in Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) value in India was swift”, the period taken into consideration being “between 2005/2006 and 2019/2021”.
But the report also gives a caveat: The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on poverty in India could not be adequately assessed as 71 per cent of the data of the 2019/2021 Demographic and Health Survey were collected before the pandemic.
Still, it is a big achievement, says the report, that during this period, 415 million people came out of poverty—275 million between 2005/2006 and 2015/2016 and 140 million between 2015/2016 and 2019/2021.
Though 415 million is a significant figure in itself, the report says that “India still has the highest number of poor children in the world”, which is 97 million, or 21.8 per cent of children aged 0-17.
However, considering overall, “the poorest states reduced poverty the fastest, and deprivations in all indicators fell significantly among poor people”, resulting in India being in a “feasible” position to achieve one of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—the SDG target 1.2, which prescribes reducing at least by 50 per cent the proportion of men, women and children living in poverty by 2030.
Bengal was among the best-performing states, being the only state which was among the 10 poorest states in 2005/2006 but exited the group in the 2019/21 period.
The 10 poorest now are Bihar, Jharkhand, Meghalaya, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan.
The report has highlighted the fact that the most common areas of deprivation for the poor in India are nutrition, cooking fuel, sanitation and housing—the same as in all the 111 developing countries.
