We’ve made significant progress on poverty reduction

Source: The post is based on an article “We’ve made significant progress on poverty reduction” published in Live Mint on 27^th October 2022.

Syllabus: GS 2 – Social Justice

News: Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) 2022 has been released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative.

What approach is followed by MPI to list a household as multidimensionally poor?

It identifies overlapping poverty indicators and captures the intensity of deprivation.

Deprivation is calculated across 10 indicators using three dimensions – health, education and standard of living.

The weighted average score based on 10 indicators of each household is the MPI. If the deprivation score is one-third or higher, the MPI identifies the household as multidimensionally poor.

What are the findings of MPI 2022 for India?

Reduction in Poverty: India has made good progress on all 10 deprivation indicators. There has been reduction in the number of poor people (415 million people exit poverty) in India from 2005.

• This is the first time that India has shown poverty reduction performance like China. In terms of percentage, poverty fell from 55.1% of our population to 16.4% in 15 years, i.e., from 2005. Therefore, it can be said that India is no longer a poor country.

Number of Poor: India has the largest number of poor people worldwide (229 million).

Rural-Urban Gap: There is a huge gap between the people living in urban areas than those living in rural areas. Around 21.2% of rural residents are poor compared to only 5.5% of urban residents. Accord to the report, rural areas account for nearly 90% of all poor people in India.

Children-Adult Gap: More than one in five children (21.8%) are poor compared to one in seven adults (13.9%).

Deprivation indicators: The high deprivation indicators in India are access to cooking fuel, housing, nutrition and sanitation.

States: States such as Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh have made improvement still they are India’s most deprived states. Odisha has also joined the list of deprived states.

What can be the course of action?

The highlights of the report help India to reorient its public policy depending upon the deprivation indicators. The measures that can be taken by India are –

1. a) deprivations in people’s access to nutrition, cooking fuel, sanitation and housing need to be addressed on priority, b) the public distribution system should be oriented towards distributing nutrition from distributing basic calories, c) the subsidized cooking fuel benefits should be expanded further in rural areas, d) the central and state government should increase its effort in sanitation and affordable housing.

is it corect? [AS1]

The article says “global MPI complements the international $1.90 a day poverty threshold.” [AS2]

Yes Sir, it is correct. MPI is the global poverty index and it uses the global poverty standard. [at3]