Poverty Indicators: Comparing World Bank and Multidimensional Poverty

This assignment examines poverty indicators, comparing the World Bank's approach with the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), focusing on a specific country or region. The analysis highlights the differences in their methodologies and what each indicator measures, exploring whether the choice of indicator affects a country's performance ranking. The student's response references key readings, including Roelen (2017) and Baulch (2006), to support the comparison and analysis of different poverty measurement strategies. The assignment also considers how factors such as income, geographical factors, and occupations are used in poverty analysis, and whether these factors influence the choice of poverty indicator. The aim is to evaluate the impact of different poverty indicators on a country's development and the effectiveness of the policies and strategies used to reduce poverty.

2020
Poverty factors
Student details

POVERTY FACTORS 1
Poverty Indicators.
Poverty Headcount Ratio at National Poverty indicator is used by the World Bank to analyse
the percentage of the population living below the national poverty line, on the other hand,
the Multidimensional Poverty Indicator uses PPP as a parameter to analyse the poverty within the
nation. The difference between both the indicators is that the indicator used by the World
Bank focuses on analysing the extreme poverty within the nation, whereas the poverty
indicator used by MPI analyses the acute poverty within the nation. As World Bank indicates
that within South Africa 55.5% of the is below the poverty line and based on the PPP
parameter, MPI indicates that 18.9% of the population is below the acute poverty line.
Indicators used by the organisation for analysing the poverty differentiate with each other in
terms of the parameter, as the poverty headcount ratio has a limited approach to analyse the
poverty, certain other factors lead towards the low income within the society (Baulch, 2006).
The nations are categorised on a different basis for the poverty analysis and the variables
included differs in terms of the analysis, as based on income, geographical factors and
occupations, as a result, it is required that the analyst focuses on different variables identified
by the World Bank and MPI while analysing poverty level within the nation (Lines, 2008).
Poverty within the society
The people within the article faces poverty due to the lack of capabilities and due to lack of
resources. The inequality within society and gender discrimination also result in increasing
poverty levels. Due to the lack of resources, individuals within the society find it difficult to
escape from poverty by getting access to quality education and focus on health and nutrition.
Therefore, it is required that the analysis of the poverty level within the society should also
focus on the societal factors and accordingly the issues are required to be analysed (Chattier,
2005).
The indicators or the measurement for the poverty levels defined by the World Bank and MPI
focuses on multiple aspects, as the poverty indicators focus on the literacy level as well as
health conditions of the nations are also included as a poverty indicator. So that the poverty
levels, as well as issues within the nations, can be effectively analysed and accordingly
policies and strategies can be formed by the nation’s government so that the issue can be
resolved and the financial equality among the people can be established (OECD, 2015).

POVERTY FACTORS 2
References
Baulch, B., 2006. The New Poverty Agenda: A Disputed Consensus. IDS Bulletin, 37(4), pp.
82-90.
Chattier, P. D., 2005. Understanding Poverty from a Gender Perspective: Thinking ‘Small’
Through Paaru’s Story. Fijian Studies, 3(2), pp. 249-276.
Lines, T., 2008. Making Poverty a history. New York: Zedbooks.
OECD, 2015. Keeping the multiple dimensions of poverty at the heart of development.
[Online]
Available at: https://www.oecd.org/dac/POST-2015%20multidimensional%20poverty.pdf
[Accessed 23 March 2020].