Prospects for attaining the multidimensional poverty target of SDG 1.2: evidence from the most recent multiyear harmonized data for 75 developing countries

ABSTRACT

This paper uses recent multiyear harmonized data on multidimensional poverty for 75 developing countries to judge prospects for attaining SDG Target 1.2 of reducing multidimensional poverty by one-half. Exponential rate of decline in multidimensional poverty headcount is calculated and extrapolated to the SDG period 2015–2030 to see whether the rate of decline would lower multidimensional poverty headcount by 50% over the 15-year period. There are 43 countries in which the observed rate of decline is large enough to reduce the headcount by half in 15 years. These countries had a total population of 3.9 billion and multidimensional poverty headcount of 580.7 million. There are 24 countries, with multidimensional poverty headcount of 549.9 million, where rate of reduction is not large enough to lower MDP headcount by one-half in 15 years. There are 8 countries that may or may not make the target. The international community needs to focus on the 24 countries that are likely to miss the target even in the pre-COVID scenario studied in this research. When post-COVID data become available in a few years, it should be possible to reassess the situation and to judge the effect of COVID on prospects for reaching the SDG Target 1.2.

KEYWORDS:

• Multidimensional poverty
• Sdg target 1.2
• country-Level prospects
• most recent data

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• I30
• I32

Acknowledgements

Perceptive comments from an anonymous reviewer are gratefully acknowledged. Tanay Gupta helped with the production of Figure 1. The usual disclaimer applies.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Multidimensional poverty headcount is derived from household-level data on deprivation in each of the indicators for health (two indicators), education (two indicators) and standard of living (six indicators). A listing of these indicators is given in Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (2020), 4). A more extended description of the method for constructing multidimensional poverty measures is provided in technical note 5 of Human Development Report 2020.

² Although population in each country can be inferred from the headcount rate and the population in multidimensional poverty, the population data taken from WDI Table 2.1 have the merit of being for the same year for all countries.

³ This is also broadly consistent with the evidence indicated by the more recent data in Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (2021) which implies that 56% of the countries seem likely to attain and 44% are likely to miss the SDG target. Additional details are available from the author.

⁴ There are very few studies that deal with the prospects for attaining SDG target 1.2 or other SDG targets. Besides Ram (2021), Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (2020) and Alkire et al. (2020), there is a study by Santos, Dabus and Delbianco (2019) whose main focus was to relate economic growth with multidimensional poverty. It does not directly deal with the prospects of reaching the SDG target on multidimensional poverty.