By; PETER NOSAKHARE, Kaduna
Thirty three million Nigerians do not have access to health, education, living standards and work and shocks are 133 million, according to the latest National Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) Report launched on Thursday by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
MPI announced that they are offering a multivariate form of poverty assessment. And that it is different from the popular one-dimensional, linear approach which only uses 1.90 dollars per day.
It identifies deprivations across health, education, living standards, work and shocks and shows the number of people who are multidimensionally poor and the deprivations they face at the household level.
It complements income-based poverty measures, by measuring the non-income-based dimensions of poverty, to provide a more comprehensive assessment of the extent of poverty and deprivation.
According to Semiu Adeniran, statistician-general at NBS, it is the first time they will conduct a standard multidimensional poverty survey in Nigeria.
“The survey was implemented in 2021 to 2022 and it is one of the largest survey with a sample size of over 56,610 households in 109 senatorial districts in the 36 states of Nigeria,” he said.
Matthias Schmale, United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria who revealed the findings from the report said 63 percent of Nigerians are multidimensionally poor meaning that they are being derived in more than one dimension of the four measured.
“Multidimensional poverty is more pronounced in rural areas where 72 percent of people are poor compared to urban areas where we have 42 per cent.
“Gender disparity continues to affect the population with one in seven poor people living in a household in which a man has completed high school but the woman has not,” Schmale said.
He also said that, “67 percent of children aged 0 to 17 are poor and that 86 million poor people live in the north while nearly 47 million in the South.”
