Designing a Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI)

Each official permanent national Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) is created following the processes of governance in a country. 

The actors and order of steps vary across countries, but in general the process of building an MPI includes the following stages:     

  • Initial discussions and engagement across a wide range of stakeholders inside and outside government. 
  • Formulation of a Technical Committee and a Steering Committee to act as technical and political champions of the project. 
  • Capacity-building training on the AF method upon which the MPI is based for the technical team that will be computing and interpreting the national MPI.  
  • Discussion of potential indicators to be included. 
  • Selection of data sources and a long list of potential indicators.  
  • Implementation of several candidate MPIs having different structures to clarify the robustness of findings and ensure the final measure meets technical standards. 
  • Steering Committee selection of final MPI and poverty cut-off(s). 
  • Finalization of the national MPI, including analysis and report writing. 
  • Formal approval of official permanent MPI, data tables and report. 
  • Launch of national MPI, ideally involving both technical and policy leaders and key stakeholders.
  • Communications campaign across print, broadcast and digital media tailored to target audiences across language groups at national and subnational levels.
  • Reporting of the national MPI in the global SDG Database as SDG Indicator 1.2.2
  • Presentations of national MPI to sectoral ministries and subnational governments with the aim that policy actors use the MPI to reduce poverty cost-effectively and monitor changes over time.
  • Sharing of national experiences by technical and policy actors both in a South-South network such as the MPPN and in major international fora. 

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