Poverty declines, but battle not over

Persisting challenges in nutrition, education and sanitation in many districts underscore the need for a bottom-up effort to eradicate deprivation

As we mark 76 years of independence, the latest poverty numbers from the multidimensional poverty index (MDPI) for India for 2019-21 made me happy for two reasons. First, because they showed that about 415 million people have come out of poverty between 2005-06 and 2019-21. Second, because when I was responsible for the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP’s) Asia-Pacific work from 2008 to 2013, I had pushed hard for countries in the region to adopt the MDPI as a complement to the income- or consumption- expenditure-based poverty estimates. Many countries in the Asia-Pacific agreed, but India remained a holdout then.

Subsequently,