Unraveling the Complex Web of Multidimensional Poverty: A Network Perspective

Poverty is multifaceted. An individual or household facing poverty can endure numerous disadvantages simultaneously. In addition to the inability to meet essential needs, poverty may also signify inadequate access to education, healthcare, sanitation, nutrition, and infrastructure.

Assessing multidimensional poverty provides a broader perspective on the hurdles individuals encounter when grappling with poverty, thereby aiding in shaping policy strategies that nations can implement to tackle these issues.

Nevertheless, despite advancements in the measurement of multidimensional poverty, policy remains disjointed due to a limited comprehension of how poverty metrics interrelate and evolve together.

Recent research seeks to tackle this issue by introducing the Poverty Space network and the Poverty Centrality index.

• The Poverty Space network is a graphical representation that illustrates the structural connections between various dimensions of poverty and aids in understanding how different forms of deprivation are linked.
• The Poverty Centrality index assesses the significance of each dimension for policy intervention purposes.

Utilizing data from the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative/UNDP Global Multidimensional Poverty Index, researchers have created visuals for 67 developing nations to demonstrate these concepts. The dashboard below can be utilized to visualize the Poverty Space of a nation in a specific year and download the pertinent data used for this visualization.