Measuring multidimensional poverty in Kenya across time and space

This study focuses on Kenya’s progress in reducing poverty by drawing on set of indicators from the Alkire-Foster multidimensional framework that encompasses multiple facets of the Sustainable Development Goals. This framework is adjusted, based on assessments of its reliability and validity, by adding additional indicators, with equal weights, and omitting one indicator (child mortality) that was found to be unreliable. This index is then used to profile multidimensional poverty in Kenya between 2014 to 2022. 

Key findings

• The study emphasises the use of country-specific contexts in the assessment of multidimensional poverty.
• The global multidimensional poverty index (MPI) framework is not reliable in the Kenyan context.
• In particular, child mortality is not a reliable indicator as it does not distinguish well between the poor and the non-poor; and only a small proportion of individuals lost a child (younger than 18 years) in their household.
• An expansion of the global MPI framework that includes indicators of schooling gaps, overcrowding, and access to a bank account improves model reliability.
• An assessment of the dimensions and weights shows that the model with equal weighting is the most valid model in the Kenyan context.
• Kenya has experienced remarkable improvements in the poverty situation as shown by the significant reduction in the poverty headcount and MPI at the national, sub-group, and spatial levels during the period under review.  
• The largest contributor to multidimensional poverty is the living standards dimension while the education dimension has the least contribution. 

Dissemination