Measuring multidimensional poverty in countries with incomplete data Ben BrunckhorstMinh Cong NguyenNishant YonzanHai-Anh H. DangChristoph Lakner July 23, 2026 This page in: English

https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/opendata/measuring-multidimensional-poverty-in-countries-with-incomplete- Multidimensional poverty measures offer a more complete picture of poverty than monetary measures alone, yet their adoption has been limited by fragmented data. For instance, for the most recent year, the World Bank’s Multidimensional Poverty Measure (MPM) can be estimated for only two-thirds of the world despite individual indicators covering at least 85% of the global population. This is because these indicators are scattered across different datasets, which complicates measurement and carries real policy costs, as our companion blog highlights.