Days after the Global Hunger Index ranked India at 107, a report by the United Nations agency said that 41.15 crore people came out of multidimensional poverty in India over 15 years. However, it also said that India continues to have the largest number of poor people worldwide (22.89 crore).

“Demographic and Health Survey for the country show that 415 million (41.5 crore) people exited poverty between 2005/2006 and 2019/2021 — including about 140 million (14 crore since 2015/2016 — and that the country’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, and the incidence of poverty fell from 55.1 percent to 27.7 percent to 16.4 percent,” a report by United Nations Development Program (UNDP) said.

The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) measures acute multidimensional poverty across more than 100 developing countries. It measures each person’s overlapping deprivations across ten indicators in three equally weighted dimensions: health, education and standard of living. The health and education dimensions are based on two indicators each, while the standard of living is based on six indicators.

Commenting on India’s performance, Shoko Noda, Resident Representative, UNDP India, said that India has shown great commitment and leadership in lifting people out of poverty, especially among the poorest in the country. The Sustainable Development Goal target 1.2 is for countries 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. “India’s progress shows that this goal is feasible, even at scale,” she said.

Bihar witnesses fastest reduction

Highlighting a particular State doing well, it said that Bihar, the poorest state in 2015-16, saw the fastest reduction in MPI value in absolute terms. The incidence of poverty in Bihar fell from 77.4 per cent in 2005-06 to 52.4 per cent in 2015-16 to 34.7 per cent in 2019/21. Deprivations in sanitation, cooking fuel, and housing fell the most from 2015-16 to 2019-21.

Meanwhile, the report acknowledged that despite tremendous gains, India continues to have the largest number of poor people worldwide (22.89 crore, and the ongoing task of ending poverty remains daunting. The most recent data for MPI were collected pre-pandemic, so the effects of Covid-19 and subsequent shocks on poverty in India cannot be assessed yet.

“Children are still the poorest age group, with more than one in five children being poor, compared with around one in seven adults. This translates to 97 million poor children - more than the total number of poor people in any other country covered by the global MPI,” it said.

The MPI data is based on Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and Multiple Indicators Cluster Surveys (MICS). The data used to estimate the 2022 global MPI values were gathered from household surveys across 111 countries, covering 6.1 billion people. The report finds that 1.2 billion people live in acute multidimensional poverty – nearly twice the number of people when poverty is defined as living on less than $1.90 per day.