In 2022 the global MPI was released on 17th October ... was computed for 111 countries ... 

The  2022 edition of the joint HDRO-OPHI report explores interlinkages of deprivations...

The global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2022 compares acute multidimensional poverty for 111 countries in developing regions. These countries are home to 6.1 billion people, three-quarters of the world’s population. Of these people, 1.2 billion (19.1%) are identified by the 2022 global MPI as multidimensionally poor.

The 2022 global MPI shows both who is poor – in terms of their age group, subnational region, and whether they live in an urban or rural area – and how they are poor – which overlapping deprivations they face and how many deprivations they have.

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This year’s report, Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2022: Unpacking deprivation bundles to reduce multidimensional poverty, produced in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme Human Development Report Office (UNDP HDRO), examines interlinkages, or the simultaneous interlinked deprivations which multidimensionally poor people face around the world.  The report presents for the first time in-depth analysis of the possible combinations – or bundles – of deprivations across the ten indicators measured in the global MPI. The analysis investigates which interlinked deprivations are most frequent and where, and how they can be addressed with multisectoral approaches to poverty reduction.

Interlinkages

There are over 850 possible combinations of the 10 deprivations measured in the global MPI. The report covers in-depth deprivation profiles on millions of households. In doing so, it reveals regional differences in poverty profiles and identifies associations between frequently linked deprivations. These insights can inform multisectoral policies for reducing persistent drivers of poverty.

• The most common profile, affecting 3.9 percent of poor people, includes deprivations in four indicators: nutrition, cooking fuel, sanitation and housing. More than 45.5 million poor people are deprived in only these four indicators. Of those people, 34.4 million live in India, 2.1 million in Bangladesh and 1.9 million in Pakistan making this a predominantly South Asian profile.
• The second most common deprivation profile contains the six standard of living indicators.  Nearly 41 million poor people have this profile. It is the most common profile in Sub-Saharan Africa, where it accounts for 5.9 percent of poor people (34.2 million).
• Globally, 4.1 million poor people are deprived in all 10 MPI indicators.
• The report includes country case studies to probe how interlinkages can be assessed at the country level. For example, the most common deprivation profile in Ethiopia is the standard of living profile, where people lack all six standard of living indicators (cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water, electricity, housing and assets; in Lao People’s Democratic Republic the analysis finds that the most common deprivation profile is where the household has at least one malnourished child, has no eligible member who has completed at least six years of schooling and cooks with solid fuels.

Levels and trends

In addition to the annual global update of multidimensional poverty across 111 countries in developing regions to complement the World Bank’s extreme poverty lines, the report this year provides an analysis of trends within the global MPI for 81 countries.

• Across 111 countries, 1.2 billion people—19.1 percent— live in acute multidimensional poverty. Half of these people (593 million) are children under age 18.
• The developing region where the largest number of poor people live is Sub-Saharan Africa (nearly 579 million), followed by South Asia (385 million) – but that reflects both older data in Africa as well as India’s strong progress.
• Simulations in 2020 suggested that the COVID-19 pandemic had set progress in reducing Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) values back by 3–10 years. Updated data indicate that the setback at the global level is likely to be on the high end of those projections.
• Nearly 83 percent (964 million) of poor people live in rural areas, and 17 percent (198 million) live in urban areas.
• More than 66 percent of poor people live in middle-income countries, where the incidence of poverty ranges from 0.1 percent to 66.8 percent nationally and from 0.0 percent to 89.5 percent subnationally.
• Nearly half of poor people (518 million) live in severe poverty, meaning their deprivation score is 50 percent or higher.
• One in six poor people lives in a female-headed household.
• Of the 81 countries with trend data, covering roughly 5 billion people, 72 experienced a statistically significant reduction in absolute terms in MPI value during at least one period. Central African Republic and Guinea experienced an increase in MPI value between the two most recent surveys.
• Some 26 countries experienced a statistically significant reduction in every indicator. That is, the percentage of people who were poor and deprived in each indicator declined for all indicators in at least one period.  Three of these countries (Plurinational State of Bolivia, Honduras and India) saw reductions in all indicators over two periods.
• In 40 countries—half of those covered—there was either no statistically significant reduction in poverty among children or the MPI value fell more slowly among children than among adults during at least one period. 
• In some countries subnational regions that were initially among the poorest in their country reduced poverty faster in absolute terms than the national average, narrowing the poverty gap. These include both Lempira and Intibucá in Honduras (2011/12–2019), Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh in India (2015/2016–2019/2021), East and South in Rwanda (2014/2015–2019/2020) and Mekong River Delta in Viet Nam (2013/2014–2020/2021).

The report also shines a light on the significant reductions of poverty in India, which shows how the SDG Target 1.2 –to reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions by 2030 – is possible.

• In India, 415 million people exited poverty between 2005/2006 and 2019/2021—including about 140 million since 2015/2016.
• India’s MPI value and incidence of poverty were both more than halved. The MPI value fell from 0.283 in 2005/2006 to 0.122 in 2015/2016 to 0.069 in 2019/2021. The incidence of poverty fell from 55.1 percent in 2005/2006 to 27.7 percent in 2015/2016 to 16.4 percent in 2015/2016.
• The percentage of people who are poor is 21.2 percent in rural areas compared with 5.5 percent in urban areas. Rural areas account for nearly 90 percent of poor people: 205 million of the nearly 229 million poor people live in rural areas.
• More than one in five children in India are poor (21.8 percent) compared with around one in seven adults (13.9 percent).
• Children, the poorest age group, saw the fastest reduction in MPI value from 2005/2006 to 2015/2016 in India. The incidence of poverty fell from 34.7 percent to 21.8 percent among children and from 24.0 percent to 13.9 percent among adults.

A call to action for more frequent poverty data

The report issues a call to action to improve the quality and frequency of data collection to ensure better informed poverty reduction policies and advocates for:  

• Committing funding to ensure the continuation and greater frequency of multitopic household surveys that can be used to estimate multidimensional poverty.
• Supporting capacity building for national statistics offices to gather high-quality poverty data with extensive disaggregation and to cover left-behind groups.
• Including new modules to address missing data on vital topics for poverty, such as work (including informal work), physical insecurity and household health.

• Databank
• Country Briefings
• Data tables
• ...