India fastest country to reduce poverty: UN

GENEVA: According to a report published by United Nation, India was successful in pulling 271 million people above the poverty line in between 2006 and 2016, recording the fastest reductions in the multidimensional poverty index values during the period with strong improvements in areas such as “assets, cooking fuel, sanitation and nutrition.”

2019 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) from the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) was released on Thursday, July 11.

Out of the 101 countries covered for the report, 31 were low income, 68 middle income and 2 high income – a total of 1.3 billion people were found “multidimensionally poor”. The term defines poverty not by income, but by a number of indicators, including poor health, poor quality of work and the threat of violence.

The report identifies 10 countries, namely Bangladesh, Cambodia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru and Vietnam, who have shown statistically significant progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal 1, namely ending poverty “in all its forms, everywhere”.

India’s MPI value reduced from 0.283 in 2005-06 to 0.123 in 2015-16.

In 2005-2006, 640 million people of India (55.1 per cent) were living in multidimensional poverty and this number has since reduced to 369 million people (27.9 per cent) by 2015-16.

India reduced deprivation in nutrition from 44.3 per cent in 2005-06 to 21.2 per cent in 2015-16, child mortality dropped from 4.5 per cent to 2.2 per cent, people deprived of cooking fuel reduced from 52.9 per cent to 26.2 per cent, deprivation in sanitation from 50.4 per cent to 24.6 per cent, those deprived of drinking water reduced from 16.6 per cent to 6.2 per cent.

“This progress was largely driven by South Asia. In India, there were 271 million fewer people in poverty in 2016 than in 2006, while in Bangladesh the number dropped by 19 million between 2004 and 2014,” the report highlighted.