The United Nations Development Programme along with the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (HDI) hosted a study named ‘Charting pathways out of multidimensional poverty: Achieving the SDGs’
Released on Thursday the study was based on the multidimensional poverty index (MPI) which gauges the complexities of poor people’s lives, individually and totally both.
The MPI was observed in 75 countries, from East, Central and South Asia, Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa and the Pacific as well. The report was wholly meant to provide a comprehensive outlook on the global trends of multidimensional poverty amassing nearly 5 billion people.
According to the observations, 65 countries have descended their MPI value and 50 nations have reduced the number of poor people in their countries.
The study has found that four nations — India Armenia, Nicaragua and North Macedonia — have curtailed their MPI by half or more in 5.5 to 10.5 years.
India saw the most number of people moving out of multidimensional poverty, the study reported. Some 270 million people were moved out of the poverty between the years 2005-06 and 2015-16. According to the study, 55.1 per cent of the population in India lived under multidimensional poverty in 2005-06. In 2015-16, it came down to 27.9 per cent.
This may be the result of poverty alleviation schemes and opening of government schools with a higher number of nutritional schemes for the overall well-being of the poor. However, the pandemic has deteriorated most of it.
“COVID-19 is having a profound impact on the development landscape. But this data – from before the pandemic – is a message of hope. Past success stories on how to tackle the many ways people experience poverty in their daily lives, can show how to build back better and improve the lives of millions,” says Sabina Alkire, Director of OPHI at the University of Oxford.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the chances of the major developing countries of the world to plunge into poverty has escalated. In such a scenario, the countries that are still trying to bring their citizens out of starvation faces an even gigantic predicament.
India too has seen a rise in mass unemployment and hunger with the strict lockdown being imposed. According to Economic times, nearly 12 million people are in danger of moving into poverty.
With the schemes like the Mid-Day Meal programme being closed with the shutting down of schools and on top of that the plight of migrant labourers coming back home without income and lodging and seemingly no wages for time being, the predicament it seems hasn’t ended yet.
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