The poverty challenge

High, sustainable, and inclusive growth is the only answer

The release of the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP’s) annual report on multi-dimensional poverty is an appropriate point to evaluate India’s progress on poverty reduction. As the report underlines, it is an impressive achievement. The UNDP had previously found that India had lifted 271 million people out of poverty between 2005-06 and 2015-16. The latest, the 2019 report, further fleshed out how this was achieved. Multi-dimensional indicators recognise that poverty is about more than just access to income: It is also about access to resources and capabilities to improve individual prospects. Thus, 10 indicators go into constructing the multi-dimensional poverty