Development is working. There has been a massive drop in global extreme poverty rates — from 36 per cent in 1990 to 8.6 per cent in 2018 — vastly increasing the economic and social opportunities for so many across the world. Yet, in describing poverty, the standard still refers to income — a line that sits on US $1.90 per day. Above and below this line, people are categorized as not poor or poor.
That arbitrary international poverty line does not fully describe how people experience poverty in multiple and simultaneous ways in their daily lives. In response to this gap in knowledge, the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) tries to capture how people experience poverty and does not include income at all. For instance, MPI indicators examine whether a household has access to drinking water, sanitation facilities or electricity; whether a household member has completed five years of schooling; or whether there is severe undernourishment of any adult in the household.
And the results are startling. The 2019 MPI data shows that 1.3 billion people around the world are multidimensionally poor. Astonishingly, one in three children worldwide is multidimensionally poor, compared to one in six adults. A further 879 million people are at risk of falling into multidimensional poverty, which could happen rapidly if they suffer setbacks such as conflict, drought, sickness or unemployment.
The MPI also shows that there are poor people outside of poor countries, outside of poor regions and outside of poor households. Surprisingly, two-thirds of the multidimensionally poor — 886 million people — actually live in middle-income countries. National averages can also hide enormous inequality in patterns of poverty within countries. Look for instance at Uganda where Kampala has an MPI rate of six per cent but outside of the capital, the MPI soars to 96 per cent, a similar rate to Sub-Saharan Africa. There is even inequality under the same roof. In South Asia, for example, almost one quarter of children under the age of five live in households where at least one child in the household is malnourished and at least one child is not.
Worryingly, the pace of poverty reduction is starting to slow down and current forecasts project that six per cent of the global population will still live in extreme poverty by 2030, missing the target of ending poverty. If people are still suffering from poverty, how can we expect them to help us reach the other ambitious targets set by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)? Indeed, it is no coincidence that eradicating poverty is the first Goal — given its impact upon the other 16 SDGs.
As SDG 1 tasks us with eradicating poverty in all its forms everywhere, by the year 2030, we need more detailed information on where the poor live to ensure that no one is left behind. That is, data that goes beyond income as a measurement of poverty is vital to tackle the root causes of poverty and inequality. Complementing the MPI, the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) upcoming Human Development Report (HDR) will specifically examine the inequalities in human development — inequalities that can also deepen poverty for many. The generation of more comprehensive data by sources like the MPI and the HDR has profound policy implications. They feed further into the recognition that eliminating poverty is not only about ensuring people have enough income to pull people over a one-dimensional income poverty line. Rather, it is about empowering people with access to services such as health, education and energy — much of which depend on a wide range of policies, including the provision of public goods — so that people can fully exercise their human agency.
For UNDP, helping people to get out and stay out of poverty remains a primary focus. Our use of more wide-ranging data on poverty and inequality helps us to provide better and more targeted support to the poor and marginalized. And there are reasons for hope. In India alone, some 271 million people have escaped poverty in the space of just ten years. Poverty is not permanent.
However, poverty is still pervasive. And to fight poverty, we need to know where poor people live. They are not evenly spread across a country, not even within a household. The wider recognition of this fact is crucial as the world works to eradicate poverty in all its forms by 2030.
By Achim Steiner, Administrator of the UN Development Programme
