Ethiopia Improves Poverty Level, Yet Remains Below Line

December 14 , 2019

About 83.5pc of the Ethiopian population was found multidimensionally poor compared to the 27.3pc level of income poverty in the country, according to the recently released 2019 Human Development Report published by the United Nations Development Programme. The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), which provides insight on the magnitude of poverty in a given country, showed that the measure of income alone does not help address the multidimensional aspects of poverty in the country. Released on December 10, 2019, at Skylight Hotel, the Report shows that Ethiopia made improvements in all ten indicators in the MPI between 2011 and 2016. The MPI includes multiple deprivations ranging across 10 indicators in health, education and standard of living measures. One of the areas identified in the report for further improvement was education, particularly secondary education enrollment, school dropouts and overall female student participation in education. Despite the marked improvements Ethiopia has made since 2000 in reducing the income poverty level by 66pc, the nation is still found below the global average as well as the average for Sub-Saharan Africa. On the same date, UNDP's Accelerator Lab, which is designed to promote different startups and innovations to address local challenges, was launched.