Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2021

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Last Updated12/10/2021

Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) 2021 has been released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI). The Index compares acute multidimensional poverty for 109 countries in developing regions which are home to 5.9 billion people, three-quarters of the world’s population.
Of these people, 1.3 billion (21.7%) are identified by the 2021 global MPI as multidimensionally poor.

Global MPI is an international measure of multidimensional poverty first developed in 2010 by Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for UNDP’s Human Development Reports.
For the estimation of deprivation or poverty from different dimensions, the MPI uses three dimensions and ten indicators which are:

Education: Years of schooling and child enrollment (1/6 weightage each, total 2/6)
Health: Child mortality and nutrition (1/6 weightage each, total 2/6)
Standard of living: Electricity, flooring, drinking water, sanitation, cooking fuel and assets (1/18 weightage each, total 2/6)

Across 109 countries 1.3 billion people— 21.7 percent—live in acute multidimensional poverty.
About half (644 million) are children under age 18.
Nearly 85 percent live in Sub-Saharan Africa (556 million) or South Asia (532 million).
Roughly, 84 percent (1.1 billion) live in rural areas, and 16 percent (about 209 million) live in urban areas.
In 43 of the 60 countries with both multidimensional and monetary poverty estimates, the incidence of multidimensional poverty was higher than the incidence of monetary poverty.
More than 67 percent live in middle-income countries, where the incidence ranges from 0.1 percent to 66.8 percent nationally and from 0.0 percent to 89.5 percent subnationally.
Of the 80 countries permitting study of trend data, covering roughly 5 billion people, 70 experienced a statistically significant reduction of the MPI value during at least one period.
Of the 20 countries that reduced their MPI value the fastest, 14 were in Sub-Saharan Africa, 3 were in South Asia, 2 were in East Asia and the Pacific and 1 was in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The fastest reduction was in Sierra Leone (2013–2017) during the Ebola epidemic, followed by Togo (2013/2014–2017), Mauritania (2011–2015) and Ethiopia (2016–2019).

The report provides an intrahousehold analysis of multidimensional poverty relating to girls and women’s education in 109 countries and household headship in 108.
Two-thirds of multidimensionally poor people – 836 million – live in households in which no girl or woman has completed at least six years of schooling.
One-sixth of all multidimensionally poor people (215 million) live in households in which at least one boy or man has completed at least six years of schooling, but no girl or woman has.
One in six multidimensionally poor people live in female-headed households.

The report finds stark inequalities among ethnic groups in some countries in developing regions.
Nearly 128 million people belong to ethnic groups in which 70 percent or more of the population of those groups is multidimensionally poor
Indigenous peoples are among the poorest in all Latin American countries covered.

While the impact of COVID-19 on developed countries is already an active area of research, the report offers a multidimensional poverty perspective on the experience of developing countries.
Emergency social protection coverage is less prevalent in high-MPI countries.
The percentage of employed nonwage workers is particularly high in high-MPI countries.
The percentage of households with children who stopped participating in formal education during the pandemic is larger in higher MPI countries.