South Asia has been accommodating a significantly large share of global income and multidimensional poor compared to other regions. The multidimensional poor refers to individuals who are deprived of more than one dimension such as health, education and living standards. During the last decade, the share of income poor in South Asia has increased, despite the share of multidimensionally poor showing only a marginal decline. Poverty reduction achievements in Sri Lanka have been remarkable during the last two decades and therefore Sri Lanka accounts for South Asia’s lowest poverty incidence in terms of both income and multidimensional poverty. The analysis based on international income poverty line of 1.90 USD (2011 PPP) per day and the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) developed by Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI).
South Asia’s income poverty dynamics compared to other regions
According to studies such as Bourguignon & Morrison (2002), the global poverty rate dramatically dropped from 94% (1820) to 10.7% (2013) during the last two centuries. However, South Asia’s share of global poor has increased from 27.3% to 33.4% during the period of 1990-2013, leaving behind only to Sub-Saharan Africa which accounts for the largest share (50.7%) of global poor. Despite South Asia’s share of global poor having increased, the number of poor people living in South Asia actually fell by 248.8 million during 1990-2013. The figure 01 illustrates region-wise poverty reduction along with world’s average poverty headcount index during the period of 1990-2013.
Specifically, the headcount index of Sub-Saharan Africa had dropped only by 13% during the period of 1990-2013 and remained at 41% by 2013. In fact, the headcount index of 41% (2013) is the highest amongst the regions and also higher than that of the world’s average headcount index (21.9%) during the period of 1990-2013. In contrast, the headcount indices of all other regions by 2013 were significantly below the world average and particularly, the East Asia and Pacific and South Asia regions performed remarkably well in poverty reduction during the period of 1990-2013. Particularly, the headcount indices of the East Asia and Pacific and South Asia regions dropped from 60.2% to 3.5% and from 44.6% to 15.1% respectively, during the period of 1990-2013.
