Relevance and use of the article in UPSC prelims and mains examination:Dear aspirants, this article is focused in poverty alleviation programmes of government whether they are enough to eradicate poverty or there is some thing wrong with these calculation methods. Ending poverty is one of the 17 global goals that make up the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. Eradicating poverty in all its forms, including extreme poverty, is the greatest global challenge and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development. Poverty reduction and sustainable development are inseparable as poverty reduction is the premise for sustainable development. Poverty reduction and sustainable development supplement each other. Poverty reduction covers many fields such as health, education, women protection and environment. From this perspective, poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon.
Introduction:
- The goal of sustainable development is to end poverty in all its forms everywhere. To this end, India needs to develop two kinds of poverty assessment standards.
- The first is for income poverty measured by currency,
- The other is multidimensional poverty assessment standard reflecting the levels of education, health, housing and living standards. Only when the two standards are combined can we really identify, target at, monitor and assess poverty in all its forms.
- Poverty can be reduced or made more severe as a result of a range of decisions or situations related to economic development, such as investment and job creation; distribution of wealth, through social protection schemes, for example access to services, such as education and healthcare; mitigation of the effects of climate change and disasters; and peace and security.
How income poverty versus multidimensional poverty are measured.
- Since 2010, UN Development Programme (UNDP) has been publishing the multidimensional poverty index (MPI), the components of which are deprivations in health, education and standard of living at household and individual levels. MPI is constructed using the same data source across indicators for a given country.
- Multidimensional poverty assessments aim to measure the non-income based dimensions of poverty to provide a more comprehensive assessment of the extent of poverty and deprivation.
- The MPI is published by the UNDP’s Human Development Report Office and tracks deprivation across three dimensions and 10 indicators: health (child mortality, nutrition), education (years of schooling, enrollment), and living standards (water, sanitation, electricity, cooking fuel, floor, assets).
- The MPI first identifies which of these 10 deprivations each household experiences, then identifies households as poor if they suffer deprivations across one-third or more of the weighted indicators.
- MPI is created by multiplying two numbers: the percentage of population who are poor and the average percentage of the weighted indicators that poor people experience (intensity). Including intensity provides an incentive to reach the poorest of the poor.
Relevance of MPI:
- An MPI is very important for poverty eradication as it (a) makes acute poverty visible in multiple dimensions
- provides a clear, informative poverty headline
- monitors change and reflects effective policy interventions quickly
- shows the interconnected deprivations poor people experience
- enables policy coordination, not a silo approach
- provides incentives to target the poorest by tracking changes in intensity of poverty
- may be linked to environmental or other variables
- displays success in leaving no one behind through direct disaggregation – and celebrates success. compares non-monetary deprivations directly, independent of price or currency.
Outcomes by MPI
- It would track extreme deprivation in nutrition, health, education, water, sanitation, clean cooking fuel, and reliable electricity, to show continuity with Millennium Development Goal (MDG) priorities.
- More specifically it would reflect the deprivations like: adult or child malnourishment; disrupted or curtailed schooling (a minimum of 1-8 years); the absence of any household member who has completed six years of schooling; child mortality within the household within the last five years; lack of access to safe drinking water; lack of access to basic sanitation services; lack of access to clean cooking fuel; lack of basic modern assets (radio, TV, telephone, computer, bike, motorbike, etc.); and lack of access to reliable electricity.
Other indicators:
- Potential additional indicators to reflect the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) include work; housing; violence; social protection; quality of schooling; health system functioning; teenage marriage or pregnancy; solid waste disposal; birth registration; and internet access.
- Determining poverty levels in a country like India on the basis of any single deprivation would result in poverty rates above 90 percen.
India on MPI
- India is a country with striking differences in the incidence of poverty based on the poverty line chosen. When MPI is used, more than half the population is considered to be living in multidimensional poverty, whereas, based on the national poverty line (2011) and the international poverty line, the monetary poverty headcount figures remain at 21.9 and 23.6 percent respectively
- The MPI can help to eradicate extreme poverty by complementing income poverty measures and shining a high-resolution lens on poverty, showing who is poor and how they are poor, helping to ensure that the SDGs “leave no one behind”.
- In order to measure poverty in all its forms, the MPI should be included for a number of reasons. The index provides the only comprehensive measure available for non-income poverty, which has become a critical underpinning of the SDGs.
Conclusion:
- Only by adopting an integrated perspective on poverty, we can eradicate poverty in all its forms. It would also be desirable to decentralise the MISD into Zonal Hqrs. e.g. East, West, North, West, Coastal and Island, Hilly and Border areas, etc. with a view to enabling the government to adopt a regional and local perspective on poverty and develop and implement such strategies for poverty eradication which suit the local situation. This approach would pave the way for localisation of development.
Question:
An assessment standard can help identify, target, monitor and assess poverty in all its forms; in your opinion the current methodologies adopted by india are enough to calculate and eradicate poverty. discuss
Suggested points:
- Discuss about the current situation of poverty in india.
- Calcllation methods adopted by india to measure poverty.
- Problems with these measures.
- UNDP goals on poverty.
- MPI method of measuring poverty.
- Suitability and importance of this method in indian scence.
- Suggetions.
- conclusion.
