Comments on: Guest Blog: World Bank research director critiques the new UN poverty index

By: Mohd Muzammil

Mohd Muzammil — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 04:27:15 +0000

Poverty is a state of mind. It’s being positive and enthusiastic can win over the adversities of life indicated through various types of deprivations captured by poverty related indices. Mental depression seems to be the cause and effect of what we name as poverty. Affectionate sympathy, moral boosting and institutional support can effectively help overcome the poor state of mind.Including more variables in poverty indices may sound rationally very good but still may not be able even touch the real cause! Poor is one who does not have a friend from among the non poor. Can’t a rich sincerely befriend a poor and thus help solve the problem of poverty? Will this not be able to reduce the painful feeling of inequality as well?

By: Thusitha Kumara

Thusitha Kumara — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 07:02:12 +0000

Yes, I too agree with Sabina C, it is high time to change and WB losing its monopoly power on poverty measurements. MPI is a good starting point, now the experts should try to improve it. Alkire and Sabina has shown that their MPI is open to change, the dimensions, indicators and weights can be changed. So the researchers can tailored it with their requirements and data avilability

Individual country analysis may be the best usage of MPI and would lead to better policy making than using WB $ 1 (now 1.25).

By: Sabina Clarendon

Sabina Clarendon — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 14:42:56 +0000

Such a disappointing critique from Ravallion… “But it is not obvious how a composite multidimensional poverty index such as the MPI contributes to better thinking about poverty, or better policies for fighting poverty.” is such a nonsensical statement.

A long last, the WB is losing its monopoly power over the production of global poverty statistics.

Finally, someone proposes and implements an alternative way, as imperfect as it may be, to measure this thing called global poverty. Of course the statistics suffer from limitations, with the data, its coverage, comparability issues, etc. being the principal mischiefs.

But how are the WB’s methods any better?

It’s time to let the UN and Oxford’s researchers to do their job and produce their own set of independent-minded, novel, fresh, refreshing, intriguing, multidimensional global poverty statistics.

Their publication suggests that market for the production of these figures has finally been opened up to competition. Only good things can come out of this.

By: John Clark

John Clark — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 13:57:40 +0000

OHPI and Martin Ravallion are both right and wrong in my opinion. A single measure of consumption, as used by the World Bank’s under $1.25/day indicators, does not give a true picture of poverty, and so efforts to assess other dimensions of poverty are important. But OHPI’s approach is far too limited (including for the reasons Ravallion describes). Participatory research demonstrates that poor people are extremely concerned about vulnerability to shocks, violence, discrimination, isolation and other negatives – none of which are revealed in the OPHI work. Poverty must also be seen as relative; having much less income that your peers is a factor too (as even Adam Smith recognized). Hence the MPI statistics are all-too-often counter-intuitive. It just isn’t credible that South Africa and the Palestinian Territories are virtually free of poverty; that Ethiopia has much worse poverty than Central African Republic, Burundi and Sierra Leone; that Nicaragua is poorer than Ghana, Philippines, Uzbekistan or Bolivia; or that the former Soviet Union countries are all relatively free of poverty. If indicators don’t tally with the reality as seen with ones own eyes they aren’t credible. OPHI’s papers on Bhutan, for example, make no reference to the marginalization and poverty of the “Nepalis” (those of Madheshi Nepal origin who have lived for generations in Bhutan but who are mostly denied opportunity and citizenship).

On the other hand, Ravallion’s confidence in income statistics, and the Living Standards Measurement Surveys (LSMS) on which they are based, is misplaced. This approach has methodological flaws, is subject to serious survey errors, produces data that change little in the face of shocks that clearly have a profound impact on the poor, conceal the prevalence of poverty in wealthy countries and produces results that are often unrealistic. For example, tracking the prevailing rates of malnutrition with LSMS poverty data suggests that in about 5 years time the former will overtake the latter – i.e. there will be millions of people who go to bed hungry, even though they aren’t poor. I started writing a paper on this in 2005 when I was working at the World Bank but then got taken over by work on the tsunami reconstruction in Indonesia.

A single index of poverty is superficially an attractive proposition, but may be unworkable. When I go to a garage I might want to have a single indication of what is wrong with my car; if I am given a “98% good” rating it sounds encouraging, but if the starter motor doesn’t work the car isn’t any use. It’s more useful to have a single rating on what it will take to fix the car (the repair bill). And that might be more practical in the field of poverty. Even that would have to be a dual rating: an estimate of what it would cost to resolve the priority problems of poverty as identified by the poor (as a proportion of GNP, say) plus an estimate of the political will required to achieve the redistribution required.

By: Faisal

Faisal — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 20:53:45 +0000

Dear, proponents and opponents of MPI
Poverty is a phenomenon which creates its base first and than creeps and we called it chronic poverty. Secondly, one must know whether the way we are defining poverty is realistic or not. If it is something physical and or behavioral or state of mind. There are number of issues that we have to keep in mind always when we are talking about poverty and its multidimensional nature. This is for sure that this world in the long run future may be in a position to see the end of absolute poverty but what to do about relative poverty that we can give an end to. Most of the literature on poverty until date is rather focusing on relative poverty. A dollar a day or calorie intake or poverty of opportunity. One must think poverty in its early phases as well as its historical and chronological episodes to learn from it and make it history.

By: Ayehualem T. Ferede

Ayehualem T. Ferede — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 06:02:14 +0000

Well, one thing is perfectly clear – poverty is multidimensional and goes beyond income (expenditure/consumption).
How best can we measure this multidimensional phenomenon is the biggest question that all development researchers and practitioners have been bogged down in?
I strongly believe that a dollar a day ($1.25 a day) cannot capture the extent of poverty one is going through. The worst part is governments are rejoicing for reducing poverty by gauging their achievement against this measurement – instead of going back to the drawing board and critically looking at their strategy. The WB– using their financial muscle as an advocacy – is the first institute to clamp their hands in support of such flawed conclusions.
In order to critically see the extent and depth of poverty a comprehensive measure is needed. This measure does not have to be perfect, rather has to clearly show the problem vividly.
We all know the problem of aggregation to measure once (household’s) wellbeing – and if the new tool is based on a household data that is a being leap forward.
Having said this, one alarming issue that all needs to take into account is the quality of data (sometimes doctored data); and one way of minimizing such challenges is triangulation. Looking at the multidimensional (broader) factors is one additional advantage I could see immediately.

By: Shakeb Afsah

Shakeb Afsah — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 14:59:50 +0000

Ravallion is advocating some sort of methodological purity in his criticism of MPI while his own methodology is riddled with theoretical and statistical assumptions, and data caveats. MPI is a composite index and its true value would emerge over time, perhaps after at least five years of consistent measurement and evaluation. Let’s face it, Consumer Confidence Index in the US is not the most scientific concept rooted in any deep economic theory, yet by measuring it in a standardized way for years, it has developed some reasonable interpretation and turned into a useful policy indicator. Ravallion should have enough scholarly mettle see the inconsistency in his criticism of MPI. MPI, for all its shortcomings, would be a useful metric to publish on a regular basis.

By: Fitsum

Fitsum — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 10:28:29 +0000

I am pleased to read the various views on mesuring poverty and their implications to policy and decision making.

Despite the challenges, I believe, sufficent and accurate date collected at the same time (season)for all the indicators that would be included in to the MPI equation is the cornerstone. Without this, we end up in wrong conclusion due to variations caused by the methodolgy used, seasonality of the data as well as the tools used for data analysis.

Furthermore, the MPI provides all options i.e., if we want to see one aspect of the componenets poverty for instance income, or health poverty or the combined/aggregate aspect of poverty it has it.

For me the policy development and subsequent decision making is the most important issue. A singluar analysis ends to a singular conclusion leading to singular decision. For instance if it is about income poverty, the implication is to make a policy and decide on measures for raising income of the targeted people without looking into the inter and intra houshold or regional distribution. But if we take the composite approach as parameter we will be in a better position to develop a comperhensive policy that targets poverty in a comperhensive manner regardless of the target area or household or an individual. We are lucky though the MPI has the tools to do all these levels i.e., area, household and individual.

My conclusion is this, with the above conditions (quality and timeliness of data with accurate methodolgy and analysis used), MPI is by far better than the WB singular approach to measure poverty.

By: Bijaya

Bijaya — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 08:48:43 +0000

This MPI measurement is noble one. This will capture real prevalent of poverty population in any society. It will also maintain and measure the real chronic poor, poor and non-poor of any country by adopting not only income or xpenditure but also incorporate with many dimensions related to poverty such are, health, social and economic dimensions of poverty.

By: HENRY

HENRY — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 14:31:30 +0000

Todos consensuamos que la forma de medicion de la pobreza planteada es muy simple y que requiere adicionar nuevos indicadores como la diferenciacion de zonas rurales, urbanas, urbano marginales.
además en varios paises los estados utilizan estrategias para reducir la pobreza como la entrega de dinero, alimentos. que en lo inmediato es bueno pero no genera sostenibilidad en el futuro, creo que se debe enseñar a pescar y no solamente a comerselo

Duncan: thanks Henry, here’s a rough translation for non Spanish speakers: “We all agree that the usual way to measure poverty is very simple and that new indicators should be added such as differentiation between rural, urban and marginal urban zones. Also in several countries, states use various strategies to reduce poverty, such as cash or food transfers, which is good in the short term, but does not generate long term sustainability. I think you need to people to fish, not just give them fish to eat.”