Poverty, reducing it in the world is no longer a mirage, some countries are on the right track and the 2030 Agenda Goals are not that far away

ROME – The latest update of Multidimensional Poverty Index (IMP) global published since United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and fromOxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) from the University of Oxford demonstrates that poverty reduction is an achievable goal. However, the lack of comprehensive data on the pandemic poses a number of challenges in assessing the immediate outlook. The multidimensional poverty index emerges from the examination of the conditions of deprivation suffered by a person through 10 indicators relating to health, education and general living standards, thus offering a tool for identifying who is poor and to what extent And.

Countries of small goals. Analysis of trends from 2000 to 2022, focusing on 81 countries, reveals that 25 of them have successfully halved multidimensional poverty levels in 15 years, demonstrating that rapid progress can be made. This small but important milestone has been marked by Cambodia, China, Congo, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Morocco, Serbia and Vietnam. India is one of the states that has seen a notable reduction in poverty, with 415 million people coming out of the spiral of poverty in just 15 years. 69 million people have improved their economic and social status in China and 8 million in Indonesia. These are countries that have halved their poverty index in a period of time ranging from four to twelve years, thus demonstrating that one of the Sustainable Development Goalsor halving poverty within 15 years, is not so utopian.

The problem of the pandemic. Despite these encouraging trends, the lack of post-pandemic data for most of the 110 countries covered by the report limits understanding of the effects of COVID-19 on people’s lives. While trying to reach the Sustainable Development Goals foreseen byAgenda 2030Indeed, it can be seen that there has been steady progress in multidimensional poverty reduction prior to the pandemic. But the impact of Covid-19 on some fields such as education has been significant, and therefore could also have long-lasting consequences.

Cambodia is the most encouraging case. Judging by the few countries where data was collected exclusively in 2021 or 2022, namely Mexico, Madagascar, Cambodia, Peru and Nigeria, the momentum towards poverty reduction may have continued even during the pandemic. Cambodia, Peru and Nigeria have shown significant declines in their most recent periods, offering hope that progress is still possible. In Cambodia, the most encouraging of these, the incidence of poverty fell from 36.7 per cent to 16.6 per cent and the number of poor people halved, from 5.6 million to 2.8 million in 7.5 years, including those of the pandemic.

The children. However, the global incidence has yet to be measured and it is children who are especially concerned. In more than half of the countries covered, there has been no statistically significant reduction in child poverty or the multidimensional poverty index has fallen more slowly among children than among adults. This suggests that child poverty will continue to be a pressing problem, particularly in relation to school attendance and undernourishment. “The surprising paucity of data on multidimensional poverty is difficult to understand, let alone justify,” said Sabina Alkire, director of theOPHI extension at the University of Oxford – the world reeling under a deluge of data and preparing for the next era of digital growth. Yet we do not have post-pandemic numbers available for the world’s poorest”.

Misery in different aspects of daily life. The global multidimensional poverty index not only monitors poverty reduction to influence public policies, but also shows how people experience conditions of destitution in different aspects of their daily lives: from access to education and health, to standards such as housing, drinking water, sanitation and electricity. According to the 2023 report, 1.1 billion people out of 6.1 billion, just over 18 per cent, live in acute multidimensional poverty in 110 countries. Sub-Saharan Africa with 534 million people and South Asia with 389 million are home to about five out of six poor people.

Middle-income countries. Nearly two-thirds of all the world’s poor, or 730 million people, live in middle-income countries. Although low-income countries make up only 10 percent of the population included in the multidimensional poverty index, 35 percent of all the global poor reside here. Children under 18 account for half of this poor population, at 566 million. The rate of poverty among children is 27.7 percent, while among adults it is 13.4 percent. Poverty affects mostly rural areas, with 84 per cent of people without means or possibilities living in the countryside. Rural areas are poorer than urban areas in all parts of the world.