Report: Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2014
Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI)
June 2014: http://www.ophi.org.uk/multidimensional-poverty-index/mpi-2014/
[Excerpts from overview content]

The global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) is an international measure of acute poverty covering over 100 developing countries. It complements traditional income-based poverty measures by capturing the severe deprivations that each person faces at the same time with respect to education, health and living standards…

The MPI can be used to create a comprehensive picture of people living in poverty, and permits comparisons both across countries, regions and the world and within countries by ethnic group, urban/rural location, as well as other key household and community characteristics…

The Global MPI in 2014 covers 108 developing countries and spans a number of topics:
1) Destitution: In 2014 we have used more extreme MPI indicators to shine a light on hundreds of millions of people who each day face grinding hardships difficult for most of us to imagine: the destitute, or poorest of the poor. Across 49 countries analysed so far, half of MPI poor people are destitute; over 638 million people. The good news is that where data are available, we can see strong progress being made to improve the lives of the destitute, particularly in the poorest countries.
2) Dynamics: We look at how multidimensional poverty changed in 34 countries covering 2.5 billion people, documenting trends in poverty and destitution across and within those countries, and according to different kinds of deprivation. We discover that the countries which reduced MPI poverty and destitution the most in absolute terms were mostly Low Income and Least Developed Countries, with Nepal making the fastest progress.
3) Rural-urban comparisons: Our rural-urban analysis finds that of the 1.6 billion people identified as MPI poor, 85% live in rural areas – significantly higher than income poverty estimates of 70-75%. We also analyse changes over time by rural and urban regions for 34 countries, looking at the level and composition of that change by each of the Global MPI’s 10 indicators.
4) Inequality: Poverty reduction is not necessarily uniform across all poor people in a country, or across population subgroups; an improvement overall may yet leave the poorest of the poor behind. In 2014 we use a new measure to analyse inequality among poor people in 90 countries, and find the highest levels are to be found in 15 Sub-Saharan African countries; in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan; and in Yemen and Somalia.