Unit 2 - Multidimensional Poverty

Question 1

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (1970):

Answer 1

• Self actualisation
• Esteem needs (self esteem, recognition, status)
• social needs (Sense of belonging, love)
• safety needs (security, protection)
• physiolofical needs (hunger, thirst)

When needs lower in the pyramid are met, individuals move up in the hierarchy to fulfil higher needs.

Question 2

Amartya Sen’s capability approach

Answer 2

Capabilities > functionings > well-being

Poverty prevents people from realising their full potential. Development is about giving people the freedom to realise that (human) potential.

A person’s capability set determines the range of things that they can do with their life or their possible achievements (or functionings).

Question 3

A person’s capability are defined by at least four things:

Answer 3

1. Private income
2. Access to key public goods (eg health and education services)
3. Personal characteristics
4. Environment in which (s)he lives

Question 4

How does Sen’s capability approach differ from a basic needs approach to understand poverty?

Answer 4

The capability approach is more explicit as to why things are needed. Basic needs correspond most closely with capabilities, which are required to permit a range of functionings.

The CA also:

• due to their personal circumstances some people may have greater requirements (needs) than others in order to achieve the same level of functionings.
• some people may not choose to pursue particular functionings even though they have the capabilities to permit them to do this.

Question 5

The development of a multidimensional poverty indicator faces at least 4 generic challenges:

Answer 5

1. What are the dimensions of poverty or deprivation that should be considered?
2. For each dimension, what is the cut-off point that indicated deprivation in that dimension?
3. How/if all, should information on the various dimensions be aggregated to give an overall picture of poverty?
4. Is the data available?

Question 6

Chambers (1983) needs of the poor (in this order):

Answer 6

1. Survival
2. Security
3. Self-respect

Question 7

Explain the HDI

Answer 7

Human Development Index first in HDR 1990, at national level
Human Development is a process of enlarging peoples choices

The 3 dimensions:

• life expectancy
• adult literacy
• a decent standard of living (GNI/capita in USD at PPP rates)

Seeks to compare progress as a challenge to the GDP/capita that WB was using.

Recently been using the geometric mean (3wortelLEIxEIxGNI)

Question 8

Explain the HPI

Answer 8

Human Poverty Index introduced by UNDP in 1997
HPI-1 measures deprivation in a developing country context
HPI-2 measured it in a developed country context

For HPI-1

• probablility at birth of not surviving until 40
• adult illiteracy rate
• composite (average) of the proportion of people without access to safe water AND the proportion of children who are underweight.

For HPI-2

1. Probability at birth of not surviving until 60
2. Functional illiteracy rate
3. Proportion of the population living below 50% of the median income (relative income poverty)
4. The long-term unemployment rate

Alpha is introduced - the higher the more the highest value will count. In published HPI it is set as 3.

UNDP stopped reporting on HPI when MPI was introduced

Question 9

Explain the MPI

Answer 9

Multidemensional Poverty Index - 2010 HDR
Hh level data
Combines the headcount/% of people who are poor AND the average intensity. (In FGT terminology it is a P1 poverty measure)
= coupled deprivation

Health - child mortality & nutricion
Eduction - years of schooling & child school attendance
Standard of Living - electricity, drinking water, sanitation, flooring, cooking fuel, assets

In order to be able to compare countries the MPI has fixed indicators and cut off points (could otherwise be determined through PPA)

Question 10

When is a hh identified as multidimensionally poor under the MPI?

Answer 10

if it is deprived ins oem combination of indicators whose weighted sum is 30% or more of the dimensions.

Question 11

What are the 3 nationally representative household surveys that can be used to collect MPI data?

Answer 11

1. DHS - Demographic and health surveys (often supported by USAID)
2. MICS - Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (often supported by UNICEF)
3. WHS - World Health Survey (WHO)

None are done annually

Question 12

Chriticism on MPI:

Answer 12

Still leaves out important dimensions of poverty like:

• personal security
• freedom of expression

Weightings given to indicators are arbitrary and may not reflect the real importance to a poor hh

Reply of the designers:

1. Index is open to adding all types of indicators, including difficult to measure concepts such as empowerment as soon as reliable indicators and data are available.
2. No weighting is ever “correct” but the MPI ones are open and transparent so they can be changed after public debate if necessary.

Question 13

New elements are introduced to the MPI

Answer 13

Alkire et al (2014) introduces a measure of destitution (armoede) which can be thought of as extreme poverty, derived by:

1. specifying more severe cut-off points for 8 of 10 indicators
2. Identifying as destitute people who are deprived in at least 1/3 of the weighted indicators.

Question 14

Five dimensions of poverty and deprivation as experienced by the poor (Chambers, 1983)

Answer 14

1. Poverty
2. Physical weakness (nutrician, dependency)
3. Isolation
4. Vulnerability
5. Powerlessness

Question 15

Definition empowerment:

Answer 15

A process that helps people to gain control over their own lives and increase the capacity of people to act on issues that they themselves define as important.

Question 16

The categorisation of power (rowland, 1997)

Answer 16

Power over - ability to influence and coerce
Power with - power from collective action
Power within - individual consciousness
Power to - organise and change existing hierarchies

Question 17

Critique on PPA’s

Answer 17

1. Whose voices are being heard? Are the poor included?
2. Many PPA’s have failed to have an impact on policy making:
   A problem is that there are many powerful groups in society with interests that often conflict with the poor. It may not be enough to inform policy makers of problems faced by the poor, the poor have to organise themselves to persuade people in position of power to address their needs.

Question 18

What is PPA?

Answer 18

Capturing multidimensional nature of poverty: perceptions of well-being and poverty, assets used by the poor, access to resources and services etc.

No predetermined set of questions but open ended methods (unstructured interviews, discussion groups, visual methods (mapping, matrices, diagrams)

Addresses inner household and inner community power asymmetries

Question 19

Purpose of PPA

Answer 19

to incorporate into the policy process understandings of poverty that might be missed by formal hh survey techniques.

It cannot be used to generate quantitative estimates

Question 20

3 Approaches to poverty

Answer 20

1. Monetary Approach
2. Human development / capability approach
3. Participatory approach

Question 21

What the MPI does in relation to the MDG’s:

(Alkire, Santos, 2010) key reading

Answer 21

1. Employs indicators that relate to the MDG’s - 8 out of 10, and the other 2 are related (electricity and flooring)
2. Estbalishes the base population as the household (In MDG each indicator has different base)
3. Illuminates the simultaneous deprivations of households, we can identify different types or clusters of deprivations.
4. MDG’s have a focus on countries and how countries are doing compared to the target. This leaves little room for BIG countries like India with 3000 more people than maldives for example: every human life is to be given equal weight.

Question 22

Advantages and disadvantages of the datasets used for the MPI

Answer 22

Ideally you use the same dataset for all countries or at least exactly the same year

• none of the mentioned surveys were performed in a sufficiently high number of dev countries at a relatively recent (after 2000) point of time
• different surveys have been done in different years

Advantages:

• the countries implementing the surveys followed standardized guidelines and received technical assistance.
• they are the only currently available surveys that contain relevant information on health indicators such as nutrition and mortality in an internationally comparable way.