The United Nations Development Program and Oxford University have unveiled a new index to gauge poverty levels.
The Multidimensional Poverty Index, according to a U.N. press release, will replace the Human Poverty Index. It was developed by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative with UNDP support.
MPI evaluates several critical factors or “deprivations” that, when taken together, fully portray acute poverty than simple income measures. It takes into account the nature and extent of poverty at different levels: from household to regional, national and international levels.
“The MPI provides a fuller measure of poverty than the traditional dollar-a-day formulas,” said OPHI Director Sabina Alkire, who created MPI with James Foster of George Washington University. “It is a valuable addition to the family of instruments we use to examine broader aspects of well-being, including UNDP’s Human Development Index and other measures of inequality across the population and between genders.”
The poverty measure will be featured in the upcoming 20th anniversary edition of the UNDP Human Development Report. The publication is due out in late October.