Poverty rate highest in Mid-west: HDR-2013
KATHMANDU, MAR 16 -
Although Nepal has achieved some progress in reducing multidimensional poverty in the last two years, the poverty level varies region-wise. The proportion of population living under extreme poverty is the highest — 29.2 percent — in the Mid-Western Development Region, according to Human Development Report (HDR) 2013.
The second largest population living in extreme poverty is from the Far Western Region, followed by the Central, Eastern and Western regions, according to the report.
While segregating the population of each region too, the highest percentage living in the western mountains are in severe poverty with 60.9 percent followed by those living in the far western and central Tarai with 53.4 percent of the population.
Populations living in the far western hills, mid-western hills and western Tarai come third, fourth and fifth respectively in terms of severe multi-dimensional poverty . While measuring such poverty , the nutrition level has been given the highest point followed by years of schooling, child mortality level, cooking fuel, type of floor and sanitation.
HDR 2013, launched by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on Thursday, states that the population living in multi-dimensional poverty dropped to 44.2 percent in 2012, down from 64.7 percent in 2010. The Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) includes three dimensions of poverty related to education, health and living standard embodying the components nutrition, child mortality, years of schooling, school attendance, cooking fuel, sanitation, water, electricity, floor and assets.
With the latest UN’s Human Development Report (HDI) showing a sharp decline in the population living in multi-dimensional poverty , Sabina Alkire, director the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, Oxford University, said that it could eradicate poverty in the next 20 years if the current rate of drop in the poverty level continues. The UNDP incorporated the Oxford University data in this report.
Speaking at an interaction on the Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) organized by the UNDP on Friday, Alkire said, “Nepal dropped multi-dimensional poverty by 10 percent each year, and Nepal could wipe out poverty within the next two decades if the current rate of progress is sustained.”
During the interaction, Nepal Rastra Bank governor Yubaraj Khatiwada lauded the effort to measure poverty on a multi-dimensional level instead of from just the angle of extreme poverty .
However, he said that some of the indicators should be adjusted as per the reality of the specific country insisting that some indicators could be negotiable and some non-negotiable. “Components like health and education cannot be negotiable, but the modernity of housing and assets condition could be negotiable,” he added. He also asked whether ownership of asset or education was more important when it comes to making people able to earn well.
Uttam Narayan Malla, director general of the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), said that after the MPI was launched in 2006, the CBS also incorporated some of its components in its third Nepal Living Standard Survey 2010-11.
Source: The Kathmandu Post
