Global MPI 2023: Unstacking global poverty, data for high impact action

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By Pradeep Kumar Panda

Bhubaneswar, July 12: The Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2023 was released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative. According to the report, 415 million people came out of poverty in India within 15 years between the years 2005-2006 and 2019-2021, with incidence falling from 55.1 per cent in 2005-2006 to 16.4 per cent in 2019-2021.

The report finding shows that 25 countries, including India, successfully halved their global MPI values within 15 years, which shows that rapid progress is possible. These countries include Cambodia, China, Congo, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Morocco, Serbia, and Vietnam.

In 2015, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 1 set out to overcome the greatest global challenge: ending poverty in all its forms. At the midpoint to 2030, people’s lives continue to be battered in multiple ways simultaneously. Globally, an array of challenges impedes poverty reduction—widespread inequality, political instability and conflict, a climate emergency, COVID-19 pandemic recovery, and cost of living and other crises. There are both commonalities and specifics that cloud the way for each country.

Measures of multidimensional poverty attempt to offer clear priorities for addressing poverty, going beyond monetary deprivations. The annual global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), jointly published by the Human Development Report Office (HDRO) of the United Nations Development Programme and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) at the University of Oxford since 2010, measures interlinked deprivations in health, education and standard of living that directly affect a person’s life and wellbeing.

The global MPI is the only counting-based index that measures overlapping deprivations for more than 100 countries and 1,200 sub-national regions and offers a key perspective on SDG 1, while encompassing indicators related to other SDGs. The global MPI can be pictured as a stack of blocks, each of which represents a deprivation of a poor person. The goal is to eliminate deprivations so the height of the stack declines.

This Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2023 report presents a compact update on the state of multidimensional poverty in the world. It compiles data from 110 developing countries covering 6.1 billion people, accounting for 92 per cent of the population in developing countries. It tells an important and persistent story about how prevalent poverty is in the world and provides insights into the lives of poor people, their deprivations and how intense their poverty is—to inform and accelerate efforts to end poverty in all its forms. As still only a few countries have data from after the COVID-19 pandemic, the report urgently calls for updated multidimensional poverty data. And while providing a sobering annual stock take of global poverty, the report also highlights examples of success in every region.

Who are the poorest?

The higher the incidence of poverty, the higher the intensity of poverty that poor people experience.
485 million poor people live in severe poverty across 110 countries, experiencing 50–100% of weighted deprivations.
99 million poor people experience deprivations in all three dimensions (70–100% of weighted deprivations).
10 million of the 12 million poor people with the highest deprivation scores (90–100%) live in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Which groups are the poorest?

Sub-national regions are being left behind in two ways: where poverty is widespread, poverty is also most intense.
Half of the 1.1 billion poor people (566 million) are children under 18 years of age.
84% of all poor people live in rural areas. Rural areas are poorer than urban areas in every world region.

What deprivations do poor people experience?

824–991 million out of the 1.1 billion poor people do not have adequate sanitation, housing or cooking fuel.
600 million poor people live with a person who is undernourished in their household.
Gaps in years of schooling is a cross-regional issue: In all regions except Europe and Central Asia, around half of poor people do not have a single member of their household who has completed six years of schooling.

How do monetary and multidimensional poverty compare?

In 42 of 61 countries more people live in multidimensional poverty, based on the global MPI, than in extreme monetary poverty, based on the World Bank’s $2.15 a day measure.

How has poverty changed?

72 of 81 countries, covering well over 5 billion people, experienced a significant absolute reduction in MPI value during at least one period. But nearly all data are from before the COVID-19 pandemic.
25 countries halved their global MPI value well within 15 years, showing that progress at scale is attainable.
In 42 countries—over half of those covered—children are being left behind.
In 15 countries the rate of poverty reduction was outpaced by population growth: The number of poor people increased despite poverty rates declining.
Cambodia halved its MPI in 7.5 years (2014– 2021-2022), including COVID-19 pandemic years, despite increases in deprivations in school attendance.

Where do poor people live?

Across 110 countries, 1.1 billion of 6.1 billion people are poor. Understanding where poor people live is crucial for policymaking. Roughly five out of six poor people live in Sub-Saharan Africa or South Asia: 534 million (47.8 per cent) in Sub-Saharan Africa and 389 million (34.9 per cent) in South Asia. Some 65 per cent of the remaining poor people live in just five countries: China (2014), Indonesia (2017), Myanmar (2015-16), Sudan (2014) and Yemen (2013).

More recent data for these countries would allow their global MPI value to be updated to reflect current conditions. Across countries the incidence of poverty ranges from less than 1 per cent in 21 countries to over 50 per cent in 22 countries, 19 of which are in Sub-Saharan Africa, including the poorest four: Burundi (75.1 per cent in 2016-2017), Central African Republic (80.4 per cent in 2018-2019), Chad (84.2 per cent in 2019) and Niger (91 per cent in 2012). There is also extensive variation across regions.

Every region has at least one country with incidence below 1 per cent. The countries with the highest incidence in their region are Afghanistan (55.9 per cent in 2015-2016), Haiti (41.3 per cent in 2016-2017), Niger (91 per cent in 2012), Papua New Guinea (56.6 per cent in 2016-2018), Sudan (52.3 per cent in 2014) and Tajikistan (7.4 per cent in 2017). These countries urgently require updated data. Poverty disproportionately affects low-income countries.

They are home to only 10 per cent of the population covered by the global MPI but 34.7 per cent (387 million) of poor people. Some 65.3 per cent of poor people (730 million) live in middle-income countries, where the incidence of poverty ranges from 0.1 per cent in Serbia (in 2019) to 66.8 per cent in Benin (in 2017-2018) at the national level and from 0.0 per cent in Jaweng, Botswana (in 2015-2016), to 89.5 per cent in Alibori, Benin (in 2017-2018) at the sub-national level. The fact that most poor people live in countries that have shifted to middle-income status (as measured by gross national income per capita), highlights the importance of looking at both national and disaggregated data.

Where is poverty most intense?

The global MPI uses intensity to further probe the lived reality of multidimensional poverty. Plotting the intensity and incidence of poverty of 110 developing countries reveals a troubling upward trend: the higher the incidence, the higher the intensity that poor people tend to experience. The poorest countries by global MPI value tend to have both the highest incidence and the highest intensity.

For example, in both Central African Republic (2018-2019) and Chad (2019), more than 80 per cent of the population are poor and experience more intense poverty: 57.3 per cent and 61.4 per cent, respectively. Some countries buck this trend. For instance, Papua New Guinea has low intensity (46.5 per cent) for its incidence (56.6 per cent) compared with other countries. Of the 1.1 billion poor people, 438 million (39.2 per cent) have a low deprivation score of 33.3–39.9 per cent and are thus close to the poverty cutoff. But 485 million people (43.4 per cent) experience severe poverty, with a deprivation score of 50–100 per cent.

This calls for urgent attention to the poorest of the poor and their overlapping deprivations. In Sub-Saharan Africa the intensity of poverty is particularly serious. The region is home not only to the highest number of poor people but also to the poorest of the poor. Across the 110 countries covered by the global MPI, 99 million poor people have a deprivation score of 70–100 per cent, meaning that they experience deprivations in all three dimensions and in over two-thirds of weighted indicators. Some 12 million people—10 million of them in Sub-Saharan Africa—have a deprivation score of 90–100 per cent.

Which groups are the poorest?

Disaggregating poverty data by subnational region, age group and rural-urban area illuminates striking inequalities within countries and reveals what groups are being left behind.

Sub-national regions: Plotting incidence and intensity of poverty for 1,281 sub-national regions reveals considerable disparity, even within world regions. For example, the poorest country in the Arab States has an incidence of just over 52 per cent, but 20 sub-national regions have a higher incidence, up to 83.8 per cent. Disaggregating by sub-national region also reaffirms the troubling trend that in the places with the highest incidence of poverty, each poor person on average experiences a higher share of overlapping deprivations. But regional patterns vary: the Arab States have a steeper curve than East Asia and the Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean, while Sub-Saharan Africa, with the highest intensity, also has greater dispersion across subnational regions with incidence above 80 per cent.

Children: Over half (566 million) of the 1.1 billion poor people are children under age 18. Some 54.1 per cent of poor children live in Sub-Saharan Africa, making poverty reduction for these 306 million children a vital focus for the region. South Asia is home to 177 million poor children, or 31 per cent of poor children. Across 110 countries 27.7 per cent of children are poor, compared with 13.4 per cent of adults. This situation calls for unflagging engagement in reducing child poverty.

Rural areas: Almost 84 per cent of poor people live in rural areas, and rural poverty dominates in every world region. Rural-urban disparities are glaring in South Asia, where nearly 340 million (87.5 per cent) poor people live in rural areas, compared with 49 million (12.5 per cent) in urban areas. While urban poverty is serious and household surveys may need to do better at capturing it, most poor people live in rural areas.

What do deprivation indicators tell us about poverty—from the regional to the sub-national level?

The global MPI tells a story about poverty and disparities at the regional, national and sub-national levels. In Sub-Saharan Africa poverty affects an average of 49.5 per cent of the population, but incidence and MPI values vary widely across countries, from 0.9 per cent to 91 per cent and from 0.003 to 0.601, and across sub-national regions within those countries. For example, in Senegal (2019), where 50.8 per cent of people are poor and the MPI value is 0.263, the incidence in sub-national regions ranges from 18.3 per cent to 85.7 per cent, and MPI values range from 0.084 to 0.502. How people are poor also varies across countries and sub-national regions.

For example, in Sub-Saharan Africa the deprivations in living standards together total around 50 per cent, highlighting how tackling those deprivations is critical to overcoming poverty there. But the deprivations also vary at the country level in Sub-Saharan Africa and at the sub-national level within those countries. Compare two sub-national regions of Senegal (2019). Kédougou, in the southeast, and Fatick, on the coast, have similar global MPI values. Yet deprivation in school attendance contributes more to poverty in Fatick, while deprivations in housing and electricity are stronger contributors to poverty in Kédougou—so pathways to poverty reduction differ. In short, achieving the greatest impact on poverty requires looking below the surface to understand which indicators merit most action in a particular area.

What deprivations do poor people experience?

To end poverty in all its forms, the interlinked deprivations that poor people experience need to be addressed to reduce the intensity of poverty and thereby empower poor people to exit poverty. Recall that people living in multidimensional poverty ordinarily experience multiple deprivations simultaneously. Breaking the global MPI down by indicator reveals which overlapping deprivations are the most widespread. Across 110 countries 824–991 million of the 1.1 billion poor people lack adequate sanitation, housing or cooking fuel. More than half of poor people are deprived in nutrition, electricity or years of schooling.

The number of poor people deprived in nutrition is similar in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa (around 245 million). Almost 80 per cent of poor people who lack access to electricity—444 million—live in Sub-Saharan Africa and are being left behind in an increasingly digital world. In all regions except Europe and Central Asia, around half of poor people live in a household where no member has completed six years of schooling, making this a vexing cross-regional issue.

How do monetary and multidimensional poverty compare?

Multidimensional metrics complement monetary poverty metrics by measuring nonmonetary deprivations. Multidimensional poverty using the global MPI is often more widespread than extreme monetary poverty. In 42 of the 61 countries with data,8 the incidence of multidimensional poverty is higher than the incidence of extreme monetary poverty, measured by the World Bank at $2.15 a day. In Chad, Guinea and Mali the incidence of multidimensional poverty is 50 percentage points higher than that of monetary poverty, but in Malawi the incidence of monetary poverty is 20 percentage points higher than that of multidimensional poverty. It is clear that human lives are battered in multiple ways and that patterns vary

How has poverty changed?

The global MPI includes harmonized trends for 81 countries, covering more than 5 billion people, and 124 country periods, disaggregated by sub-national region, age group and rural-urban area (see table 2 at the end of the report). The findings at a glance are encouraging, showing that poverty reduction is possible, even though most progress occurred before the COVID-19 pandemic. 72 of the 81 countries with trend data had a significant absolute reduction in global MPI value during at least one period. And 24 of these countries had a significant reduction across two periods. 25 countries had a significant reduction in poor people’s deprivations in every indicator. 25 countries halved their global MPI value well within 15 years, showing that progress towards SDG target 1.2 at scale is attainable. At least one country in every world region halved its global MPI value, including small countries such as Sao Tome and Principe (2008-2009– 2014) and large ones such as China (2010–2014), India (2005-2006–2015-2016) and Indonesia (2012–2017). Countries with different incidences of poverty also halved their global MPI value. While 17 countries that did so had an incidence under 25 per cent in the first period, India and Congo both had a starting incidence above 50 per cent. Countries took 4–12 years to halve their global MPI value, suggesting that achieving SDG target 1.2 is feasible.

Do these trends continue after the COVID-19 pandemic?

Data for 2021 or 2022 are available only for Cambodia, Madagascar, Mexico, Nigeria and Peru, but only Cambodia, Nigeria and Peru showed significant reductions. Once again, we call urgently for poverty data that permit updates to these global trends. Sub-Saharan African countries had an absolute rate of reduction during one period that was similar to or faster than that of the fastest 4 countries that halved their global MPI value. But these Sub-Saharan African countries did not halve their MPI value due to much higher initial levels.

In addition to India, where 415 million people moved out of poverty during 2005-2006– 2019-2021, large numbers of people also exited poverty in China (69 million during 2010–2014), Bangladesh (19 million during 2015 –2019), Indonesia (8 million during 2012–2017), Pakistan (7 million during 2012-2013–2017-2018) and Nigeria (5 million during 2018–2021). In 42 countries—over half of those covered—either there was no significant reduction in poverty among children, or the global MPI value fell more slowly among children than among adults during at least one period. While 25 of the countries are in Sub-Saharan Africa, 17 are in other regions. In 14 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and 1 country in the Arab States, population growth outpaced poverty reduction. Despite a significant decrease in incidence of poverty, the number of poor people increased during at least one period.

How to use the global Multidimensional Poverty Index for impact

How can the global MPI and its associated information—incidence and intensity of poverty, and component indicators—inform tangible and pragmatic actions to achieve SDG 1 by 2030?

The global MPI provides the crucial bird’s-eye view to detect acute poverty across developing countries. Incidence of poverty reveals where people live and how widespread acute poverty is within regional, national and sub-national borders and among population groups. Intensity of poverty provides invaluable information on the depths of poor people’s poverty, shining light on the poorest of poor people. The global MPI is disaggregated to illuminate pockets of poverty and who is left behind. Finally, breakdown by component indicator shows what deprivations poor people experience, which can guide the choice of poverty reduction interventions to achieve the greatest impact.

The global MPI can be pictured as a stack of blocks, where each deprivation of each poor person is indicated by a block whose colour signifies the indicator and whose thickness signifies the indicator’s weight. When all the blocks are stacked on top of each other—reflecting all the weighted deprivations of all poor people—the height of the stack is the global MPI value. So, removing a block from the stack—that is, eliminating a poor person’s deprivation—reduces the global MPI value. The colour and thickness of the blocks help in identifying action pathways to reduce poverty. This report has shown many ways that the MPI database, covering 6.1 billion people and 1.1 billion poor people, can be used to better understand multidimensional poverty, disparities and indicator composition. It has highlighted stories of success in reducing MPI equitably, so that the poorest groups are not left behind but progress the fastest. Indeed, it found that 25 diverse countries halved their global MPI value well within 15 years, showing that progress is possible, at speed and to scale. Policy design is contextual and must engage local as well as international institutions.

Multidimensional poverty also exacerbates or is exacerbated by other contextual challenges such as conflict, environmental threats, governance challenges and economic uncertainties. Yet the hope is that the global MPI data will be used by many actors—across institutions, world regions, disciplines and sectors—to design high-impact, cost-efficient and evidence-based policies for poverty reduction.

Special focus is needed on the poorest places and groups, many of which are in Sub-Saharan Africa. By using these data on MPI values, the proportion of poor people, the intensity of their poverty, the number of poor people and indicator composition, many actors can concentrate on the multiple deprivations that batter poor people’s lives—and reduce acute multidimensional poverty.