415 million people uplifted from poverty between 2005-06 to 2019-21: UNDP

NEW DELHI: According to the latest Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) at the University of Oxford, 415 million people in India were uplifted from poverty between 2005-06 and 2019-21. According to the report, “Sustainable Development Goal target 1.2 of reducing at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions by 2030 is possible to achieve and at scale.” 

India has the world’s largest population of poor people, that is 228.9 million, followed by Nigeria, based on population data from 2020 for India (96.7 million projected in 2020). Despite advances, the COVID-19 pandemic’s adverse impact on growth and rising food and energy costs continue to threaten India’s population. It advised prioritising integrated strategies to address the current nutritional and energy issues. Despite enormous progress, it will be difficult to eradicate poverty for the 228.9 million poor people in 2019–2021, especially as the number has almost probably increased since the data collection.

In 2019–21, there were still 97 million more poor children in India than there were poor people overall, including adults and children, in any other nation, as per the global MPI. However, the data doesn’t cover changes which took place after the pandemic.

According to the research, 1.2 billion people live in acute multidimensional poverty in 111 nations. 593 million of these people, or 50 percent, are under the age of 18. The study examines the prevalent deprivation profiles among 111 emerging nations. The most prevalent profile, affecting 3.9 per cent of the poor, involves deficiencies in all four indicators: housing, sanitation, cooking fuel, and nutrition. Over 45.5 million people are poor in only these four parameters. This group is primarily South Asian, with 34.4 million of them living in India, 2.1 million in Bangladesh, and 1.9 million in Pakistan, according to the report.

In rural areas, there are 21.2 per cent of the population who live in poverty, compared to 5.5 per cent in urban areas. Nearly 90 per cent of the world’s poor live in rural areas; 205 million of the world’s 229 million impoverished people reside there, making rural areas a clear priority. In India, the research noted that more than one in five children (21.8 per cent) are poor, compared to roughly one in seven adults, despite the fact that children are still the poorest age group (13.9 per cent). This equates to 97 million underprivileged kids.

India is the only country in South Asia where families headed by women are much more likely to be poor than those headed by men. In female-headed homes, 19.7 per cent of the population lives in poverty, compared to 15.9 per cent in male-headed households. A woman is the head of one in every seven households, which means that 39 million people live in poverty.

According to the report, India’s decrease in MPI value remained pro-poor in absolute terms as it had been from 2005-2006 to 2015-2016. Rural areas had the lowest MPI values and were the poorest. In rural areas, the prevalence of poverty decreased from 36.6 per cent in 2015–2016 to 21.2 per cent in 2019–2021, and in urban areas, it decreased from 9 per cent to 5.5 per cent. The MPI value decreased the fastest in children, the age group with the most poverty. Children’s poverty rates decreased from 34.7 per cent to 21.8 per cent, and adults’ poverty rates decreased from 24 per cent to 13.9 per cent.

However, it is still unclear how changes in each environment were influenced by spending habits, performance incentives, institutions, non-state initiatives, integrated policy packages, and local dynamics. Many nations striving to rapidly and significantly alleviate acute poverty will gain from such studies.