THE proposition that one in four people, which translates to about 39.8 million individuals, suffer multidimensional poverty, as the Multidimensional Poverty Index made public in Dhaka on July 31 shows, is worrying. The index that the General Economics Division has prepared based on data from the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey also shows that about 20 per cent, or more than 30 million, people are multidimensionally poor and are broadly deprived of housing, access to the internet and sanitation. The Human Development Report Office, a wing of the United Nations Development Programme, and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative have produced and published the Multidimensional Poverty Index on Bangladesh since the 1990s. The national MPI score for Bangladesh is 0.106, which suggests that poor people go through 10.6 per cent of all possible deprivations. The MPI value ranges between 0 and 1, with 1 suggesting that the entire population is poor and deprived of all needs under the poverty index. The factors identified to have contributed to such a state of multidimensional poverty are deprivations in child school attendance, years of schooling, nutrition, housing, access to internet, sanitation and assets.
Experts at the seminar in the Planning Commission, where the Multidimensional Poverty Index was made public, have said the recommendations of the index should be implemented for a meaningful exercise, noting that it has served as an additional indicator that complements income-based poverty measures by capturing the multiple deprivations that individuals are exposed to. Discussions at the programme have highlighted the importance of the development of the National Multidimensional Poverty Index periodically and emphasised the use of the index as a device to eradicate poverty in all forms to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. The index shows that more than 40 per cent of the people live in multidimensional poverty in five of the 64 districts, which re Bandarban, Cox鈥檚 Bazar, Sunamganj, Rangamati and Bhola, noting that multidimensional poverty varies substantially across the eight administrative divisions, with Khulna having the smallest MPI score of 0.064 per cent and Sylhet having the highest MPI score of 0.177 per cent. The index also notes that the incidence of multidimensional poverty is higher among children, at 28.70 per cent, than among the adult, at 21.44 per cent. All this shows what the government needs to do and where the government needs to put in work.
The government should, in such a situation, carry out further studies to establish the cause of higher poverty in some districts and make the National Multidimensional Poverty Index a guiding policy for intervention and resource allocation to improve the quality of schooling and learning outcomes for all age groups.
