Poverty Is More Than Just Lack of Money

Poverty is not just about money. Oxford University in Britain says poverty also means not having enough food, education, healthcare and shelter.

Earlier this month, Oxford University released its latest measure of poverty. It is called the Multidimensional Poverty Index, or MPI. Researchers gathered information from 108 countries, where 78 percent of the world’s population lives. Oxford says about 1.6 billion of those people are what it calls “multi-dimensionally poor.” It says most live in rural areas.

Sabina Alkire is the head of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative. She describes multidimensional poverty.

“I mean a person who has different things going wrong at the same time. They might not have many assets and they might have malnutrition. And they might not have more than five years of schooling. So, several things are going wrong in their life at the same time. That’s what it means to be multi-dimensionally poor. It’s not just one.”

The MPI found that in nearly 50 developing countries, half of the poor people should be called “destitute” -- in other words, having an extreme lack of basic living standards.

About 420 million people are considered destitute. Most of them live in South Asia. About 343 million live in India. The MPI found there are 200 million destitute people in 24 African countries. Niger has the highest percentage of its population listed as destitute -- almost 69 percent.

An individual’s earnings is the most common measure of poverty. But Dr. Alkire says more information is needed to tell the whole story.

“It needs a measure that looks at the other aspects of people’s life -- like bad health, bad education, no water and sanitation, or poor housing -- and sees how they’re doing in those. Because actually it’s not the same people who are poor in both. And so both measures together give a more-balanced picture of how people are living.”

She says that in some places, many people have a poor diet, but are not considered poor.

“For example, in Bhutan, according to their national poverty measure, 12 percent of people are income poor and 12.7 are multi-dimensionally poor, but only a quarter of those -- 3.2 percent -- are poor in both.”

But she believes that policies aimed at reducing poverty are working.

“We studied changes over time for 34 countries this year, housing 2.5 billion people. And 30 of those countries had significant reductions of poverty. And the really good news we find is that it’s low-income countries and least-developed countries that actually reduced poverty the fastest.”

词汇解析

poverty

难度：4星核心词汇，属常用3000词

英汉解释

n.贫困;贫乏;劣质

参考例句

用作名词 (n.)

They were handicapped by (a) poverty of resources.

他们因资源短缺处境窘迫。

rural

难度：4星核心词汇，属常用3000词

英汉解释

adj.农村的，乡村的，田园的

参考例句

用作形容词 (adj.)

The rural scenery was so beautiful that he decided to stay one more week.

乡村风光太美了，以致于他决定再多呆一星期。

In rural Nepal, owning a book is something many women and children only dream about.

在尼泊尔的乡下,拥有一本书是许多妇女儿童只能梦想的事情。

found

难度：5星基本词汇，属常用1000词

英汉解释

v.建立;创立;创办;熔铸;找到，发现(动词find的过去式和过去分词)

参考例句

用作动词 (v.)

This business company was founded in 1724.

这家商业公司建立于1724年。

extreme

难度：4星核心词汇，属常用3000词

英汉解释

adj.极度的;极端的

n.极端;极限

参考例句

用作形容词 (adj.)

Extreme poverty had reduced them to a state of apathy.

极端的贫困使他们万念俱灰。

用作名词 (n.)

Starvation is at one extreme of the spectrum of food intake; obesity is at the other.

饥饿是食物摄入量的一个极端,肥胖则是另一个极端。