India lifted 271 million people out of poverty between 2006 and 2016, recording the fastest reductions in the multidimensional poverty index values during the period. This is according to a report by the United Nations which said there have been strong improvements in areas such as assets, cooking fuel, sanitation and nutrition.
The 2019 global Multidimensional Poverty Index from the UN Development Programme, the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative was released on Thursday. The report said, in the 101 countries studied, 1.3 billion people are multidimensionally poor, which means that poverty is defined not simply by income, but by a number of indicators, including poor health, poor quality of work and the threat of violence.
The report identifies 10 countries, with a combined population of around 2 billion people, to illustrate the level of poverty reduction, and all of them have shown statistically significant progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal 1, namely ending poverty in all its forms, everywhere.