Editing Extreme poverty (section)

===Alternative definitions===
[[File:Share of population living in multidimensional poverty, 2014.svg|thumb|upright=1.6|Share of population living in multidimensional poverty in 2014]]
The $1.90/day extreme poverty line remains the most widely used metric as it highlights the reality of those in the most severe conditions.<ref name="usaid1">[http://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1870/USAID-Extreme-Poverty-Discussion-Paper.pdf "Getting to Zero: USAID Discussion Paper"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170830045430/http://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1870/USAID-Extreme-Poverty-Discussion-Paper.pdf |date=30 August 2017 }}, 21 November 2013.</ref> Although widely used by most international organizations, it has come under scrutiny due to a variety of factors. For example, it does not account for how far below the line people are, referred to as the depth of poverty. For this purpose, the same institutions publish data on the [[Poverty gap index|poverty gap]].

The international poverty line is designed to stay constant over time, to allow comparisons between different years. It is therefore a measure of absolute poverty and is not measuring [[relative poverty]]. It is also not designed to capture how people view their own financial situation (known as the socially subjective poverty line).<ref>{{Cite web|url = https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/3254/WPS5968.pdf|title = Poor, or Just Feeling Poor?|date = February 2012|website = The World Bank [[Open Knowledge Repository]]|author=Martin Ravallion}}</ref>  Moreover, the calculation of the poverty line relies on information about consumer prices to calculate [[purchasing power parity]], which are very hard to measure and are necessarily debatable. As with all other metrics, there may also be missing data from the poorest and most fragile countries.

Several alternative instruments for measuring extreme poverty have been suggested which incorporate other factors such as malnutrition and lack of access to a basic education. The [[Multidimensional Poverty Index]] (MPI), based on the [[Sabina Alkire|Alkire]]-[[James Foster (economist)|Foster]] Method, is published by the [[Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative]] (OPHI): it measures deprivation in basic needs and can be broken down to reflect both the incidence and the intensity of poverty. For example, under conventional measures, in both Ethiopia and Uzbekistan about 40% of the population is considered extremely poor, but based on the MPI, 90% of Ethiopians but only 2% of Uzbeks are in multidimensional poverty.<ref>Dan Morrell.[http://harvardmagazine.com/2011/01/who-is-poor "Who Is Poor?"], [[Harvard Magazine]]. January–February 2011.</ref>

The MPI is useful for development officials to determine the most likely causes of poverty within a region, using the M0 measure of the method (which is calculated by multiplying the fraction of people in poverty by the fraction of dimensions they are deprived in).<ref>OPHI.[http://www.ophi.org.uk/research/multidimensional-poverty/alkire-foster-method/ "Alkire-Foster Method"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140815052310/http://www.ophi.org.uk/research/multidimensional-poverty/alkire-foster-method/ |date=15 August 2014 }}, 2014.</ref> For example, in the [[Gaza Strip]] of Palestine, using the M0 measure of the Alkire-Foster method reveals that poverty in the region is primarily caused by a lack of access to electricity, lack of access to drinking water, and widespread overcrowding. In contrast, data from the [[Chhukha District]] of [[Bhutan]] reveals that income is a much larger contributor to poverty as opposed to other dimensions within the region.<ref>Sabina Alkire and James Foster.[http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/oc63ch03.pdf "Counting and Multidimensional Poverty"], [[International Food Policy Research Institute]].</ref> However, the MPI only presents data from 105 countries, so it cannot be used for global measurements.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://ophi.org.uk/multidimensional-poverty-index/global-mpi-2018/|title=Global MPI 2018|website=ophi.org.uk|access-date=10 March 2019}}</ref>