Global Multidimensional Poverty Index MPI 2022:
The Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) 2022 was released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI).
Key Highlights of the Index:
Global Data:
- 1.2 billion people are multidimensionally poor.
- Nearly half of them live in severe poverty.
- Half of poor people (593 million) are children under age 18
- The number of poor people is highest in Sub Saharan Africa (579 million), followed by South Asia (385 million). The two regions together are home to 83% of poor people.
Key Findings about India:
- India has by far the largest number of poor people worldwide at 22.8 crore, followed by Nigeria at 9.6 crore.
- Two-thirds of these people live in a household in which at least one person is deprived of nutrition.
- The incidence of poverty fell from 55.1% in 2005/06 to 16.4% in 2019/21 in the country.
- The deprivations in all 10 MPI indicators saw significant reductions as a result of which the MPI value and incidence of poverty more than halved.
- As many as 41.5 crore people moved out of poverty in India during the 15-year period between 2005-06 and 2019-21.
- Improvement in MPI for India has significantly contributed to the decline in poverty in South Asia.
- South Asia now has not the lowest number of poor people than Sub-Saharan Africa..
Performance of States:
- Bihar, the poorest state in 2015-16, saw the fastest reduction in MPI value in absolute terms.
- The percentage of poor in Bihar fell from 77.4 % in 2005-06 to 52.4 % in 2015-16 and further to 34.7 % in 2019-21.
- Of the 10 poorest states in 2015/2016, only one (West Bengal) have emerged out of the list in 2019-21.
- The rest (Bihar, Jharkhand, Meghalaya, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan) remain among the 10 poorest.
- Across states and union territories in India, the fastest reduction in relative terms was in Goa, followed by Jammu and Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan.
- Poverty among children fell faster in absolute terms, although India still has the highest number of poor children in the world.
- More than one in five children in India are poor compared with around one in seven adults.
