Global Multidimensional Poverty Index: Niti to leverage monitoring mechanism

The Niti Aayog will leverage the monitoring mechanism of the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index to push forward reforms in the country and in this regard, the government think-tank has also set up a coordination committee.

The "Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) is part of the government's decision to monitor the performance of the country on 29 select global indices", an official release said on Monday.

"The objective of the 'Global Indices to Drive Reforms and Growth (GIRG)' exercise is to fulfil the need to measure and monitor India's performance on various important social and economic parameters and enable the utilisation of these indices as tools for self-improvement, bring about reforms in policies, while improving last-mile implementation of government schemes," it said.

Niti Aayog is the nodal agency for the MPI. It has also constituted a Multidimensional Poverty Index Coordination Committee (MPICC).

Global MPI is an international measure of multidimensional poverty covering 107 developing countries. It was first developed in 2010 by Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for UNDP's Human Development Reports.

The index is released at the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development of the United Nations in July every year, according to the release.

Global MPI is computed by assigning scores for each surveyed household on 10 parameters. These are based on nutrition, child mortality, years of schooling, school attendance, cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water, electricity, housing, and household assets.

It utilises the National Family Health Survey (NFHS), which is conducted under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) coordinated by International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS).

The first meeting of the MPICC was held on September 2.

"Preparation of a MPI Parameter Dashboard to rank states and UTs, and a State Reform Action Plan (SRAP) are at an advanced stage of development. The MPICC will next be organising a workshop with representatives of States and UTs for taking the SRAP forward," the release said.

In Global MPI 2020, India was 62nd among 107 countries with an MPI score of 0.123 and 27.91% headcount ratio, based on the NFHS-4 (2015-16) data.