Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) Metadata

Population living in multidimensional poverty according to global definitions using the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI)

Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI)

MPIGlobal

The global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) is an international measure of acute multidimensional poverty with a focus on developing countries. It complements traditional monetary poverty measures by capturing the acute deprivations in health, education, and living standards that a person faces simultaneously.

The MPI assesses poverty at the individual level. If a person is deprived in a third or more of ten (weighted) indicators, the global MPI identifies them as ‘MPI poor’. The extent – or intensity – of their poverty is also measured through the percentage of deprivations they are experiencing. The global MPI shows who is poor and how they are poor and can be used to create a comprehensive picture of people living in poverty. It permits comparisons both across countries and world regions, and within countries by ethnic group, urban/rural area, subnational region, and age group, as well as other key household and community characteristics.

For each group and for countries as a whole, the composition of MPI by each of the ten indicators shows how people are poor. This makes the MPI and its linked information platform invaluable as an analytical tool to identify the most vulnerable people – the poorest among the poor, revealing poverty patterns within countries and over time, enabling policy makers to target resources and design policies more effectively. The global MPI was developed by OPHI with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) for inclusion in UNDP’s flagship Human Development Report in 2010. It has been published annually by OPHI and in the HDRs ever since.

Source: Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) website, available at: https://ophi.org.uk/what-global-mpi. [assessed June 2026]

Poverty has traditionally been defined as the lack of money. However, the poor themselves consider their experience of poverty much more broadly. A person who is poor can suffer multiple disadvantages at the same time – for example, they may have poor health or malnutrition, a lack of clean water or electricity, poor quality of work or little schooling. Focusing on one factor alone, such as income, is not enough to capture the true reality of poverty. Therefore, multidimensional poverty measures have been developed to create a more comprehensive picture by looking at multiple dimensions such as health, education, living standards.

Source: UN SDG indicator metadata, version 2025 March 28, available at: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/

See full details on how to construct the index on the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) website, available at: https://ophi.org.uk/what-global-mpi. [assessed June 2026]

International definition and standards

The MPI has some drawbacks, mainly due to data constraints. The indicators include both outputs (such as years of schooling) and inputs (such as cooking fuel). Data on outcomes like people’s functionings and capabilities are not available for all dimensions.

There are many aspects of health that the two included indicators do not cover. Furthermore, the nutrition indicator is the least comparable of all 10 indicators, because in countries with MICS surveys, data are only available for children under 5 years of age, whereas in DHS surveys women’s nutritional data are usually available and sometimes some data for men. National surveys may cover a larger age range. Despite these limitations, the patterns that emerge are plausible and familiar.

In some cases, careful judgments are needed to address missing data. To be considered multidimensionally poor, households must be deprived in at least six living standard indicators or in three living standard indicators and one health or education indicator. This requirement makes the MPI less sensitive to minor inaccuracies.

Source: Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) website, available at: https://ophi.org.uk/global-mpi. [assessed June 2026]

Quality assurance follows the practices of the standardized survey series or data source from which the data is collected.