Multidimensional Poverty Index(MPI)

• The Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) was developed in 2010 by the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and the United Nations Development Programme and uses different factors to determine poverty beyond income-based lists.
• The MPI, developed by Sabina Alkire and James Foster and adopted by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 2010, measures deprivation across health, education, and standard of living, and not monetary poverty. 
• It replaced the previous Human Poverty Index. The global MPI is released annually by OPHI.
• The global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) is an international measure of acute poverty covering over 100 developing countries. It complements traditional income-based poverty measures by capturing the severe deprivations that each person faces at the same time with respect to education, health and living standards.
• The MPI assesses poverty at the individual level. If someone is deprived in a third or more of ten (weighted) indicators, the global index identifies them as ‘MPI poor’, and the extent – or intensity – of their poverty is measured by the number of deprivations they are experiencing.
• If the household deprivation score is 33.3 percent or greater, the household (and everyone in it) is classed as multi-dimensionally poor. Households with a deprivation score greater than or equal to 20 percent but less than 33.3 percent are near multidimensional poverty.
• The MPI can be used to create a comprehensive picture of people living in poverty, and permits comparisons both across countries, regions and the world and within countries by ethnic group, urban/rural location, as each dimension and each indicator within a dimension is equally weighted.

Years of Schooling: deprived if no household member has completed five years of schooling

Child Enrolment: deprived if any school-aged child is not attending school in years 1 to 8

Child Mortality: deprived if any child has died in the family

Nutrition: deprived if any adult or child for whom there is nutritional information is malnourished

Electricity: deprived if the household has no electricity

Drinking water: deprived if the household does not have access to clean drinking water or clean water is more than 30 minute’s walk from home

Sanitation: deprived if they do not have an improved toilet or if their toilet is shared

Flooring: deprived if the household has dirt, sand or dung floor

Cooking Fuel: deprived if they cook with wood, charcoal or dung

Assets: deprived if the household does not own more than one of: radio, TV, telephone, bike, or motorbike, and do not own a car or tractor.

The above characteristics make the MPI useful as an analytical tool to identify the most vulnerable people – the poorest among the poor, revealing poverty patterns within countries and over time, enabling policy makers to target resources and design policies more effectively.

National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog), the apex public policy think-tank of the Indian government, in collaboration with the UNDP and Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), developed a National Multidimensional Poverty Index to monitor multidimensional poverty at national, state, and district levels in the country.