Global Development Institute podcast
Global Development Institute podcast
Poverty Amid Conflict | In conversation with Yanchun Zhang
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In this episode, GDI's Senior Lecturer Saumik Paul discusses the recently published United Nations Development Programme report on the Multidimensional Poverty Index, 'Poverty Amid Conflict', with Yanchun Zhang, one of the report's authors.
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Speaker 1 [00:00:02] Welcome to the Global Development Institute podcast. Based at the University of Manchester, we're Europe's largest research and teaching institutes addressing poverty and inequality. Each episode, we'll bring you the latest thinking, insights, and debate in development.
Speaker 2 [00:00:25] Hello and welcome to the Global Development Institute podcast. My name is Saumik Paul. I'm a senior lecturer in global development at GDI and pathway lead for the master's program in poverty and inequality. We are delighted to have Dr. Yanchun Zhang with us today. Yanchun is the chief statistician at the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Program based in New York. She has co-authored the recently launched UNDP report on the multi-dimensional poverty index, titled, Poverty Amid Conflict. Yanchun, thank you for joining us, and many congratulations for putting together this really excellent report. So I'm going to start with the measurement issues. Please, can you tell us a bit more about how multidimensional poverty is measured in a non-technical way, and the data sources, and also how UNDP got involved in this process?
Speaker 3 [00:01:22] Thanks for inviting me to this conversation. Very happy to be here. Poverty is about not having enough, but not enough for what? For a long time, the focus has been placed on not having not enough money. For example, the World Bank's $2.15 extreme poverty line has been the benchmark for measuring poverty. But is money the only way to measure poverty? Imagine a household with income above the extreme poverty line. But this family lacks access to clean water, electricity, or adequate housing. Does this mean the household isn't in poverty, even though their living conditions clearly reflect significant deprivations? Increasingly, we recognize the poverty is not unidimensional. It goes beyond a lack of money. This growing recognition that poverty is more than just a lack of money or income has led to the birth and expansion of multi-dimensional poverty indices, reshaping policies, research and development strategies worldwide. The Global Multi-dimensional Poverty Index identifies multiple simultaneous deprivations at the household level across three dimensions: health, education and standard of living, using 10 key indicators to capture overlapping deprivations. These indicators include nutrition, child mortality, years of schooling, school attendance and access to essentials like electricity, clean water, sanitation, cooking fuel and adequate housing. It aligns with SDG 1, covering more than 100 developing countries in our report. About the data sources, our index relies on two main data sets that are publicly available and comparable for most developing countries, the demographic and health surveys, DHS, and multiple indicators cluster survey mix. For a small number of countries with no recent DHS or mix surveys, national household surveys with the same or similar content and questionnaires are used. How did UNDP get involved? UNDP has been at the forefront of redefining poverty measurement. In 1990, the first Human Development Report introduced the Human Development Index, shifting focus beyond just economic growth. In 1997, we developed the Human Poverty Index. an early attempt at measuring multidimensional deprivation. Then in 2010, Professor Sabina Alkire and James Foster produced a technical paper for UNDP on the multiddimensional poverty index. For several years after, UNDP and Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative produced MPI estimates separately. But in 2018, the two entities joined forces refining the methodology. and started producing a single globally recognized set of MPI estimates, which are what we now see in the annual OFI UNDP publication global multidimensional poverty report.
Speaker 2 [00:04:56] Thank you, Yanchun. This is very insightful. Okay, so my next question is, is there any relationship between Human Development Index and Multidimensional Poverty Index?
Speaker 3 [00:05:07] It's a very good question. The Human Development Index, HDI and the Multidimensional Poverty Index, we also call it MPI, offer two distinct but complementary perspectives on development. HDI, Human Development index provides a broad overview of countries' progress by assessing health, education and income. MPI on the other hand delves deeper. into individual and household level deprivations, revealing the specific challenges people face in their daily lives. Conceptually, like the Human Development Index, the Multidimensional Poverty Index is a capabilities-based measure, while the HDI tracks a country's overall progress in expanding its basic set of capabilities. The MPI identifies multiple simultaneous deprivations experienced by individuals. MPI assess poverty across the same three core dimensions. If we look at a country's HDI scores and MPI scores, we see a strong relationship between the two indices. Countries with lower HDI score frequently also exhibit higher multi-dimensional poverty, emphasizing the link between overall development and deprivations, for example, nations such as Niger and Chad. Rank low on our HDI list, these countries also experience widespread multidimensional poverty, demonstrating the persistence of overlapping deprivations. However, poverty is not confined to countries with the lowest HDI rankings. A significant proportion of people facing multidimensional poverty also reside. in nations with medium HDI scores, illustrating that deprivation can exist even in places that show moderate progress in human development. Many countries in Africa and South Asia struggle with high multidimensional poverty, where large segments of the population lack access to essential services such as clean water, electricity and cooking fuel. Some of the most effective countries include Niger, Chad, the Central African Republic, Burundi, Madagascar, Mali, Guinea, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and Democratic Republic of Congo. In this country's significant proportions of population experience severe deprivations. From policy makers perspective, the shift from a single income lens to a multidimensional perspective represents a fundamental transformation in the way we understand and fight poverty. By considering both Human Development Index and Multidimensional Poverty Index, policymakers can gain a more complete understanding of poverty and progress, while Human Development index provide a snapshot of overall human development. Multi-dimensional poverty index reviews the nuanced realities of deprivation, enabling more targeted interventions to address specific challenges.
Speaker 2 [00:08:54] Alright, so if I understand it correctly, they compliment each other. Alright, I did take a quick look at your study and according to this report, almost 1.1 billion people live in multidimensional poverty and nearly half of them also live in conflict-affected countries. Please, can you elaborate on the coexistence of poverty and conflict? For example, if you could just talk about a few country cases. and how these two factors are correlated. Thank you.
Speaker 3 [00:09:29] Poverty amid conflict is the theme of our 2024 global NPI report. According to this report, 1.1 billion people live in multidimensional poverty, and nearly half of them, around 455 million, also live in areas affected by conflicts. This means a disproportionate number of the world's poverty population are living in conflict settings. To put it in perspective, while just 10% of the global population lives in conflict-affected countries, 19% of world's poverty population are in these war-affected countries. Not surprisingly, poverty rates also tend to be much higher in conflict-affected nations. On average, countries experiencing war have a poverty rate of 34.8% compared to just 10.9% in countries not affected by conflicts. That's a three times difference. Some of the most impoverished countries in the world are also grappling with ongoing conflicts. Take the Central African Republic, for example, where 84% of the population is African-American. 80.4% of the population lives in multidimensional poverty. And in Burundi, this number is 75.1%. So these numbers paint a clear picture. Poverty and conflict are deeply intertwined. Beyond the statistics, we also see that conflict-affected countries suffer across all indicators of the multiddimensional poverty And perhaps more importantly, poverty reduction efforts in these countries move at much slower pace, making it even harder for people to break out of the cycle of hardship.
Speaker 2 [00:11:41] See, all right, thank you. Now, I'm just curious, how has poverty changed in these conflict-affected countries, let's say over the last 20 or 30 years?
Speaker 3 [00:11:55] Right. So poverty reduction is significantly lower in conflict affected countries, as we find in our report. While some war affected countries have managed to continue reducing poverty despite these conflicts, the progress remains much slower than in more peaceful settings. Let me give you some numbers. on average. The annual reduction rate in the multidimensional poverty index is 7.8% in non-conflict countries, but only 3.0% in war-affected nations, less than half the pace. In absolute terms, the MPI value declined by 0.012 annually in minor conflict areas, but only 0.008 in more effective countries. Let's use Afghanistan as an example. We have two surveys for the country. The Afghanistan's NPI value increased from 0.234 in 2015-2016, when we had the first survey, to 0.268 in 2022-2023, the second survey we have, meaning over 5 million more people. fell into poverty during this period, then we also know during this period from 2015-16 to 2022-23, the country is largely in conflicts and increasing conflicts. So by 2022-2023, nearly two-thirds of Afghans live in multi-dimensional poverty. That's 64.9 percent of the population. There are almost three out of five individuals, poor individuals, or children. Additionally, our report emphasized that conflict makes data collection very challenging, which means poverty levels in the war-affected areas are likely underestimated. Then the true scale of difficulties, challenges, hardship in these regions may be even greater than reported.
Speaker 2 [00:14:23] Thank you. Does the poverty level vary between war affected countries and let's say countries which are suffering from minor conflicts and also I'm just you know wondering in war affected countries, what people are mostly deprived of.
Speaker 3 [00:14:43] You're right, the poverty levels vary significantly between war affected countries and those countries experiencing only minor conflicts. War affected countries have much higher poverty rates. I already mentioned earlier, 34.8%. But if we look at the countries affected by minor conflicts, then the poverty rate is 22.6%. percent. Both of these rates are significantly higher than the 10.9% poverty rate in those countries not affected by conflicts at all. But you see the big contrast between these two groups. In terms of multidimensional poverty index values, the mean MPI value is higher in more affected countries than in countries with minor conflicts as well. This in turn Again, these numbers, in turn, are higher than in peaceful nations. However, it's important to note that conflicts is not the sole driver of poverty. We observe countries in all groups exhibit a wide range of MPI values. To answer your second question, what poor people are mostly deprived of? So We observe conflict affected countries are more deprived in all multi-dimensional property index indicators, all these 10 indicators. But in particular, we observed that in conflict affected country, people are most commonly deprived in the following three dimensions. First, nutrition. 28% of people in war affected countries face deprivation in nutrition, compared to only 7.2% in non-affect conflict countries. Then the second is electricity. 26.9% of the population in conflict countries lacks access to electricity compared to 5.6% in non-conflict countries. When it comes to the third one, education, 17.7% of children in war-affected countries couldn't go to school. compared to 4.4% in non-conflict countries. So these deprivations reflect the severe impact of conflict on people's access to basic needs, highlighting how we exacerbate poverty in multiple dimensions.
Speaker 2 [00:17:25] Thank you, Yanchun. So based on the numbers you shared, it looks like poverty rates across these different dimensions, they significantly vary between war-torn countries and countries which are experiencing minor conflict. This is very useful to know. Now, moving on, I'm going to ask you something about the monetary poverty measures, which, as you know, Um, this is a debate we often have among poverty researchers. So how do you see it? I mean, the relationship between monetary poverty and multidimensional poverty.
Speaker 3 [00:18:06] And for the question, we got this a lot. Monetary poverty and multidimensional poverty are two different ways of measuring poverty. They provide complimentary insights. While monetary poverty focus on income below a specific threshold, for example, the World Bank's extremely poverty line of $2.15 a day, multidimensional poverty, on the other hand, measured by the Multidimensional Poverty Index captures a broad range of deprivations, such as lack of education, health, and inadequate sense of living, as we talked earlier. Our report finds that in 50 of the 68 countries where we have both monetary poverty and multi-dimensional poverty data. The multi-dimensional poverty rate is higher. in this 50 out of the 68 countries. In 13 of these countries, the percentage of people living in multidimensional poverty is at least 30 percentage points higher than those experiencing monetary poverty. Countries like Chad, Kenya, and Mauritania even show a difference of more than 50 percentage points between these two property measures. But on the other hand, in another 18 countries, we see the monetary poverty rates exceed that of multidimensional poverty. These findings highlight a complex and diverse nature of poverty. So in summary, while monetary poverty is an important measure of income, MPI Multidimension Poverty Index offers a complementary view of poverty by considering multiple overlapping deprivations that contribute to a person's well-being.
Speaker 2 [00:20:05] So which countries have the largest number of people living in poverty based on your multi-dimensional index? And if you could just tell us a bit more about what are the reasons or why you think that's the case. Thank you.
Speaker 3 [00:20:19] In our report, we also documented the five countries with the largest number of people living in multidimensional poverty. They are India, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC. These nations together account for nearly half of the 1.1 billion people living in multidimensional poverty globally. Why do these countries have such large poverty populations? Several factors contribute to the large number of poor people in these countries. First and foremost, population size. Large populations, especially in countries like India, naturally contribute to a higher number of individuals in multidimensional poverty. Another factor, low development status. So, look at this. So, So, Human Development Index scores, for example, countries with low Human Development index scores typically struggle with limited access to education, healthcare, and economic opportunities. Then these countries also tend to have higher multi-dimensional poverty levels. Another factor, political instability and conflicts. Conflicts have a big impact, which is studied in this year's report. political instability will also disrupt economic progress and exacerbate poverty. Then another factor often emerged is the limited infrastructure, especially in rural areas, limited access to essential services such as clean water, healthcare, and education trapping people in multi-dimensional poverty. But it is also worthy to point out Some of these countries with very large populations living in multidimensional poverty have also made progress in reducing poverty. Take India, for example. While India remains the country with the largest population living in multi-dimensional poverty, this does not contradict the fact that significant progress has also been made. According to the latest survey from 2019-2021 used in the report. currently has about 230 million people living in multidimensional poverty, still the largest in the world. However, this marks a substantial improvements as India's poverty population has decreased significantly from almost 650 million in 2005, 2006, reflecting a remarkable reduction over the past 15 years.
Speaker 2 [00:23:15] Thank you. Now the obvious next question is how to reduce the impact of conflict on poverty. Any thoughts?
Speaker 3 [00:23:25] We do have some discussions in the report as well. In our view, a comprehensive approach to address the multi-dimensional poverty in conflict settings is necessary. When we say comprehensive, we mean integrating peace-building efforts, humanitarian aid, and poverty alleviation strategies together to create holistic recovery process. Building resilience among communities supporting sustainable livelihoods and fostering social cohesion are key elements in ensuring long-term recovery. It is clear conflict exacerbates poverty by destroying infrastructure-disrupting services and deepening inequalities. Therefore, in conflict-affected countries like Afghanistan, tackling conflict-induced Poverty involves both rebuilding infrastructure and restoring essential services. Education, particularly for girls, is critical area that must be prioritized to break the cycle of poverty. As a statistics report, our 2024 Global Multi-Dimensional Property Index Report also points out, Effective data collection is crucial in addressing conflict-induced poverty. Accurate up-to-date information about the situation on the ground is essential to tailor interventions and identify the most vulnerable populations. In conflict areas, gathering this data is often very challenging, but some use of related technologies and partnerships with local organizations can help. Therefore, we argue for more investment and more collaborations to collect conflict-related data in these areas. Ultimately, conflict impacts people in profound ways, especially the most impoverished. By addressing the root cause of both conflict and poverty with data-driven solutions and collaborative efforts, we believe we can empower vulnerable populations to rebuild their lives and communities. This is the central aim of our 2024 Global Multidimensional Quality Index Report.
Speaker 2 [00:26:03] As it appears, data is going to play a very crucial role in the coming days when we talk about poverty alleviation or at least addressing some of these issues. With global conflict representing a growing concern for the international community, it is imperative that we understand all its impacts to the lives of the people it affects. So, Yanchun, thank you so very much for joining us today. and sharing your insightful knowledge on the global quest to end poverty.
Speaker 3 [00:26:37] Thank you for having me. All the information and our report and technical notes are available on the UNDP and Office website.