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COMCEC Poverty Outlook 2017

40

ANNEXES

Annex 1: The Widely Used Non-Monetary Poverty Indices

Human Development Index

Human development approach relies on a view that poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon.

This perspective is inspired by Amartya Sen’s

25

notion of well-being and poverty. Within the

context of human development in order to investigate development by assuming that it is

something beyond income and economic growth rates of countries the UNDP calculates a

Human Development Index (HDI).

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The HDI defines people as "the real wealth of a nation"

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and posits

health

,

knowledge

and

income

as three basic aspects of human measures for

development, and calculates a country's average achievements in these areas. In conclusion, the

HDI sees poverty in terms of human poverty and defines it as a lack of income, education and

health.

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The HDI utilizes four indicators, namely GNI per capita, mean years of schooling, expected years

of schooling and life expectancy at birth, under three dimensions

(Figure 25)

. When being

calculated the index, minimum and maximum values are set in order to transform the indicators

into indices between 0 and 1. The HDI is calculated by taking the geometric mean of the three

dimension indices.

Figure 25: Dimensions of the HDI

DIMENSIONS

Long and healthy life Knowledge

A decent standard of living

INDICATORS

Life expectancy at birth

Mean years of

schooling

Expected years

of schooling

GNI per capita (PPP US$)

DIMENSION

INDEX

Life expectancy index

Education index

GNI index

Human Development Index

(HDI)

Source: The UNDP, 2015.

Multidimensional Poverty Index

Within the context of human development thinking, in addition to HDI, the UNDP have started

to calculate MPI, in order to measure poverty in a much broader context, since 2010. The MPI

considers multiple deprivations of the population and their overlap by utilizing the dimensions

of health, education and standard of living

(Figure 26)

. While the health and education

dimensions are similar to the dimensions of HDI, but use different indicators, the standard of

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Sen 1987 quoted in Haughton and Khandker 2009, p.2.

26

Klugmanet.al.

2011, p.250; Sagar and Najam 1998, p.251

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The UNDP 1990, p.9.

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The UNDP 1990, p.63.