'8 Indian states poorer than Africa’s 26 poorest'

LONDON: Eight Indian states, including Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, together account for more poor people than the 26 poorest African nations combined , a new ‘‘ multidimensional’ ’ measure of global poverty has said.

The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) was developed and applied by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) with UNDP support and will feature in the forthcoming 20th anniversary edition of the UNDP Human Development Report due late October.

The MPI, which supplants the Human Poverty Index, assesses a range of critical factors or ‘‘ deprivations’ ’ at the household level: from education to health outcomes to assets and services.

An analysis by MPI creators reveals that there are more ‘MPI poor’ people in eight Indian states (42.1 crore in Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh , Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal) than in the 26 poorest African countries combined (41 crore).

In fact, according to the new measure that includes key services such as water, sanitation and electricity, half of the world’s poor live in South Asia (51% or 84.4 crore) and one quarter in Africa (28% or 45.8 crore).
Niger has the greatest intensity and incidence of poverty in any country, with 93% of its population classified as poor in MPI terms.

Deprivation Count

42 crore poor in Bihar, Jharkhand, UP, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Rajasthan and West Bengal compared to 41 crore in 26 of Africa’s poorest countries

Half of world’s poor (48.4cr) live in south Asia, a quarter in Africa (45.8crore), says new Multi-dimensional Poverty Index

Of 104 countries surveyed (5.2bn people in all), 1.7bn live in poverty.