Multidimensional Poverty Index - 2015: Brief Methodological Note and Results

The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) (released June 2015, henceforth MPI 2015) uses the same parameters (dimensions, indicators, cutoffs and weights) and the same functional form (Alkire and Foster Adjusted Headcount Ratio M0) as in previous years. The main innovations in 2015 consisted in: updating the estimations for a larger series of countries than any previous year, providing further disaggregation of the estimations of MPI, destitution and inequality among the poor to regional level, providing the standard errors and confidence intervals of MPI and the headcount ratio (H), and providing a list of previous estimations. This brief methodological note presents the 2015 MPI updates, and the tables with the full results. It first explains the main updates in the 2015 MPI, following the guidelines for updates presented in the 2014 Methodological Note (Alkire, Conconi and Seth 2014b). It summarizes the MPI methodology that has been presented in detail in previous methodological notes (Alkire and Santos 2010; Alkire, Roche, Santos and Seth 2011; Alkire, Conconi and Roche 2013; Alkire, Conconi and Seth 2014b). Then it briefly describes the methodological assumptions considered for the estimation of each dataset. The results of such estimation are presented in the form of 6 main tables, 101 country briefings and the interactive Databank, all available on OPHI’s website.

Citation: Alkire, S. and Robles, G. (2015). 'Multidimensional Poverty Index - 2015: Brief methodological note and results', OPHI MPI Methodological Note 31 (OPHI Briefing 31), Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), University of Oxford.

This paper is also published as OPHI Briefing 31.