Ask Nepal poll candidates how they plan to reduce poverty

Nepal faces a myriad challenges in all walks of life. Who would know this better than the lower rungs of the Nepali society, the lesser mortals that constitute a silent majority? A majority of mouths but with a barely audible voice in matters that affect them the most. They are seldom heard during such rare occasions as election campaigns. Even if they are heard, they are quickly forgotten -- till the next elections.

Poverty, which comes in almost every imaginable form and shape, is one such challenge facing the country in general and the bottom rung in particular. 

A recent report has highlighted this challenge, once again.  

'Nepal Multidimensional Poverty Index 2021: Report (Analysis Towards Action)' points that in 2019, 17.4 percent of Nepalis were multidimensionally poor – just under five million persons, and the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) was 0.074. 

First, a little bit about the MPI. For one thing, MPI is not just one fancy development jargon.

What is it, then? A high-sounding term that adds insult to injury, adds more poverty to the backbreaking load of penury?

Let’s return to the report, which defines MPI as a technically rigorous measure of poverty of national and provincial policy priorities towards poverty reduction in Nepal.

Quite impressive definition, isn’t it? Why would it not be? After all, the report is the work of such prestigious authors as the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Institute (OPHI), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) with data obtained from none other than Nepal Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2019 (NMICS 2019), a work of the Central Bureau of Statistics, of course.

Across indicators, per the report, the highest number of people were deprived in housing materials, clean cooking fuel, years of schooling, assets, and nutrition. Considering the indicator weights, years of schooling and nutritional deprivations contributed most to ongoing multidimensional poverty in Nepal.

The urban-rural divide also figures in the report, with the rural lot on the receiving end. Per the report, 28 percent of rural dwellers are MPI poor (compared to 12.3 percent in urban areas). What’s more, over half of Nepal’s poor population live in rural areas.

Province-wise, the report paints a worrisome picture of the peripheries, while all seems to be well with the centre and the semi-peripheries.

Across provinces, Karnali Province had the highest MPI poor (39.5 percent of people), followed by 25.3 percent in Sudoorpashchim Province, and 24.2 percent in Province 2. In Gandaki Province, 9.6 percent of people were multidimensionally poor, while the lowest level and incidence of poverty were found in Bagmati Province, with an incidence of nearly 7.0 percent, one sixth of the incidence in Karnali Province.

Alarmingly, children still remained the poorest age group with over one in five children still poor (2.2 million). The report has disaggregated children in two age groups: children (0-17) and adult population (18+).

In Nepal, children represent nearly 35 percent of the population from 44 percent of those who are poor, per the report, which stated that 21.8 percent of all children were living in multidimensional poverty as compared to 15.1 percent of the adult population. This age category was further broken down into two categories: early childhood (aged 0-9 years) and adolescence (aged 10-17 years). Of the households living with a child 10 years, the MPI for these households was 0.124 with an incidence of poverty of 27.8 percent, and an intensity of 44.5 percent. By contrast, the MPI for households living with an adolescent was 0.064, with an incidence of poverty of 14.9 percent, and an intensity of 43.0 percent.

Genderwise, the report showed, the female population faring worse in terms of poverty than the male population. It stated that the incidence of multidimensional poverty amongst the male population (comprising 47.3 percent of the total population) stood at 14.3 percent and 15.1 percent for female population (comprising 52.7 percent of the total population).

The report has also drawn attention towards MPI in families where one of its members has a disability (someone who reported very high level of difficulty in at least one domain: visual; hearing, walking, or climbing steps; remembering or concentrating; self-care, or in communication). Per the report, nearly 3.2 percent of the population lived in a household where one of its members had a disability. The report found MPI for these households to be a bit higher than the national average, at 0.083, with an incidence of poverty of 18.3 percent, and an intensity of 45.5 percent. The report has alarmed that these households may indeed experience larger levels of deprivations.

Though prepared using 2019 NMICS data that pre-dated the coronavirus pandemic, the report has also probed into and factored in pandemic-related deprivations using NMICS dataset.

It’s not all doom and gloom for Nepal, though. The report points that Nepal has made significant progress in reducing MPI. In terms of poverty trends, the incidence of multidimensional poverty nationally fell from 30.1 percent in 2014 to 17.4 percent in 2019. In 2019, the MPI was 0.074, meaning that 3.1 million people left poverty in five years. The intensity of multidimensional poverty also significantly decreased from 44.2 percent to 42.5 percent.

Nepal can draw some solace from the fact that its MPI matched the MPI of Botswana (2015-16), one of the least poor countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, and was similar to that of Nicaragua (2011-12) in Latin America, and just a little less poor than Kiribati (2018-19) in East Asia and the Pacific region. Per the report, Nepal’s 2019 MPI value of 0.074 was below Bangladesh’s 2019 MPI of 0.104 and was lower than the MPI values for all South Asian countries except the Maldives.

These figures from afar and the extended neighbourhood may put a balm on Nepal’s hurt pride as a not-so-rich country.

But deeper troubles are not that far for ill-prepared countries like Nepal. The poverty scenario is likely to worsen further, amid rising inflation resulting from the Russia-Ukraine war in one of the world’s major oil and natural gas-producing regions that also happens to be a huge grain basket. Reports also point that the global economic depression is around the corner, with the war hastening it further.

For Nepal, the immediate casualty may be the 15th Development Plan’s goal of reducing MPI to 11.5 percent from 28.6 percent.

In such a crisis situation, Nepal’s political leadership cannot and shall not remain complacent. The onus is also on the people themselves to read and read election manifestos of different political actors and ask them some tough questions related to the country in general and the national economy in particular as they come asking for votes to grab power in the centre and in the provinces.  

And after voting these actors to power, the people should see to it that they walk the talk.

As someone rightly said, eternal vigilance is the price of democracy. 

-         Devendra Gautam