14th July, 2010

Half the world's poor live in South Asia and only a quarter in Africa although the west African nation of Niger has the greatest incidence of poverty of any country, according to a new study.

Researchers at Oxford University's Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative made the claim after developing a new measure to gauge world poverty levels known as the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI).

Using the measure - which assesses information relating to, among other things, education, health, and assets - the researchers analysed the situation in 104 countries and found that a third of their entire population - 1.7 billion people - were living in multi-dimensional poverty. The figure is well above the 1.3 billion estimated to live on $US1.25 a day or less, the commonly accepted measure of 'extreme poverty'.

According to the research 51 per cent of the world's poor live in South Asia (844 million people) while 28 per cent live in Africa (458 million). There are more poor people living in eight Indian states (421 million) than in the 26 poorest African countries (410 million).

In Niger, meanwhile, as many as 93 per cent of the population are classified as poor using the measure.

The new index, which was developed with the support of the United Nations Development Programme, will replace the Human Poverty Index as a means of measuring poverty in the UNDP's annual Human Development reports.

~ http://ophi.qeh.ox.ac.uk/

- DAVID ADAMS