India lifted 271 mn out of poverty in 2006-16 at fastest rate globally: UN

The report identifies 10 countries - Bangladesh, Cambodia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru and Vietnam - to illustrate the level of poverty reduction.

India lifted 271 million people out of poverty between 2006 and 2016, recording the fastest reductions in the multidimensional poverty index values during the period with strong improvements in areas such as "assets, cooking fuel, sanitation and nutrition," a report by the United Nations said.

The 2019 global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) from the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) was released Thursday.

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The report said that in the 101 countries studied 31 low income, 68 middle income and 2 high income - 1.3 billion people are "multidimensionally poor", which means that poverty is defined not simply by income, but by a number of indicators, including poor health, poor quality of work and the threat of violence.

The report identifies 10 countries, with a combined population of around 2 billion people, to illustrate the level of poverty reduction, and all of them have shown statistically significant progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal 1, namely ending poverty "in all its forms, everywhere".

The 10 countries are Bangladesh, Cambodia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru and Vietnam.

The report said that within these 10 countries, data shows that 270 million people moved out of multidimensional poverty from one survey to the next.

"This progress was largely driven by South Asia. In India, there were 271 million fewer people in poverty in 2016 than in 2006, while in Bangladesh the number dropped by 19 million between 2004 and 2014," it said.

The report noted that of the 10 selected countries for which changes over time were analysed, India and Cambodia reduced their MPI values the fastestand they did not leave the poorest groups behind.

Poorest & uneducated mothers benefit least from healthcare services: Study

While the poorest households had the highest utilisation of ICDS services in 2006, their share became the second lowest in 2016.

Business Standard : Despite a four-fold increase in the number of women and children receiving supplementary nutrition under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme in the 10 years to 2016, a large proportion of the poorest have not benefited, a new study has found.

Women who were uneducated or from the poorest households had lower access to the flagship programme the study found. While the poorest households had the highest utilisation of ICDS services in 2006, their share became the second lowest in 2016, the study says, suggesting that the reasons could include poor delivery, difficulty of accessing remote regions, and social divisions such as caste.

Started in 1975, ICDS, the world’s largest scheme of this kind, provides nutrition and health services to all pregnant and lactating mothers and children under six years of age. In addition to take-home food supplements and hot, cooked meals, the programme provides health and nutrition education; health check-ups; immunisation; and pre-school care services at either government-run anganwadi (childcare) centres or at home.

The study, “India’s Integrated Child Development Services programme; equity and extent of coverage in 2006 and 2016”, co-authored by researchers the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), a research advocacy based in Washington D. C., and the University of Washington, US, will be published in the World Health Organization’s April 2019 bulletin.

Using data from two rounds of the National Family Health Survey conducted in 2005-06 and 2015-16, the researchers examined equity in ICDS’ expansion and the factors that determine the utilisation of its services.

Low to middle socio-economic brackets were more likely to receive food supplements, nutrition counselling, health check-up and child-specific services than both the poorest and the richest groups, the researchers found. Women with no schooling were also less likely to receive ICDS services than those with primary and secondary education.

“Even though overall utilization has improved and reached many marginalised groups such as historically disadvantaged castes and tribes, the poor are still left behind, with lower utilisation and lower expansion throughout the continuum of care,” said IFPRI research fellow and study co-author, Kalyani Raghunathan, in a statement.

Researchers found these gaps especially pronounced in the largest states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, which also carry the highest burden of undernutrition. While both states have shown improvements in 2016, they still fall behind national averages, suggesting that overall poor performance in high-poverty states could lead to major exclusions, the authors said.