UNDP releases Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2022
Earlier this week, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI) of the university of Oxford published the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2022 (MPI). The data on which this year’s index is based was collected in 111 countries. Since its first publication in the year 2010, the index`s most important aim has been to showcase the state of global poverty as accurately as possible. The data collected relate to a total of ten categories which are split into the three dimensions of poverty: health, education and standard of living.
COVID-19: Booster of poverty
This year’s results show that 1,2 billion of 6,1 billion living in the 111 countries of the index are affected by multidimensional poverty. Even more concerning is the fact that nearly half of these people (593 million) are still minors. The authors emphasize that it is difficult to obtain sufficient data on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on poverty through the household surveys used. Nevertheless, they see a trend that the pandemic has exacerbated poverty issues. While simulations of the year 2020 suggested that fighting poverty would be set back 3 to 10 years by the pandemic, now it seems that the true impact is at the likely to be at the high end of these estimations.
How India keeps SDG 1 on the path of success
Especially in India the results show progress in the fight against poverty. In the last 15 years, 451 million citizens of the world´s biggest democracy have managed to lift themselves out of extreme poverty. This leaves the authors confident that the first of the thirty sustainable development goals - no poverty – can indeed be achieved by 2030. Unfortunately, this progress cannot be seen everywhere. The countries of sub-Saharan Africa are the home of the most people affected by poverty worldwide, with a total of 579 million. It hasn’t been until this year that this negative record was given to the region. However, the region's lead may also be due to uneven availability of data.
Learn more about this year´s global multidimensional poverty index at: https://www.undp.org/press-releases/profiling-poverty-beyond-income-shows-where-have-biggest-impact-world-crisis