Multidimensional Poverty Index 2017
MULTIDIMENSIONAL POVERTY INDEX 2017
Embargoed until 1June 2017
HIGHLIGHTS ~ SOUTH ASIA
In 2017,we have poverty estimations for seven South Asian countries, and subnational data for 84 regions, covering 94% of the population in South Asia. We are releasing new MPI estimations using DHS data for Afghanistan (2015-16) and IHDS data for India (2011-12). Afghanistan is the poorest country in South Asia, with 56% of its population being multidimensionally poor using 2015/16 data; Pakistan (2013) is the next poorest with 44%, followed by Bangladesh (2014) and India (2011-12) with each 41%,Nepal (2014) at 29%, Bhutan (2010) at 27%, and the Maldives at 5%. These tend to be higher than the $1.90/day rates.
Data for Afghanistan allow for interesting decompositions at the sub-national level (despite severe difficulties in the data collection process due to the disturbing security situation; data on nutrition were not collected, for example; overall, the data should be taken with a grain of salt). The sub-regions of Urozgan and Nooristan are the poorest regions within Afghanistan– with H being higher than 90 % - and also across all South Asian regions. At the same time, the average deprivation share among the poor is also the highest within these two regions, with A above 65 %, whereas the South Asian average (unweighted) hovers around 47%.
For the first time, we releasechild poverty results for all South Asian countries including Afghanistan and India. Our measure of child poverty identifies children by age groups. In Afghanistan, more than half of all children aged 0-17are multidimensionally poor(59%); in India and Pakistan 50% of children are poor.At the same time, children in the Maldives (6%), Bhutan (29%), and Nepal (34%) are less likely to be multidimensionally poor.
Country / Year / MPI / % MPI poor (H) / Intensity of MPI (A) / % MPI Poor Children (0-17)Maldives / 2009 / 0.018 / 5.2% / 35.6% / 5.7%
Bhutan / 2010 / 0.119 / 27.1% / 43.9% / 28.5%
Nepal / 2014 / 0.126 / 28.6% / 44.2% / 33.9%
India / 2012 / 0.191 / 41.3% / 46.3% / 49.9%
Bangladesh / 2014 / 0.196 / 41.3% / 47.4% / 45.9%
Pakistan / 2013 / 0.230 / 44.2% / 52.1% / 50.6%
Afghanistan / 2016 / 0.295 / 56.1% / 52.7% / 58.6%
In terms of absolute numbers, India accounts for both the highest and a staggering number of multidimensionally poor people. Sadly, more than 528 million Indians are poor – which is more people than all the poor people living in sub-Saharan Africa combined. India’s multidimensionally poor face on average 47% of the ten deprivations, and more than 40% of the poor (or 217 million)are children aged 0-17. Unfortunately, the data for India are somewhat outdated (IHDS 2011-12) and we do not compute sub-national estimates. We willpreparing new estimations as soon asIndia’s NFHS-IV data are released, at which time we will further analysethe MPI sub-regionally and over time.