Human Poverty Index

The 185 government delegates and 117 heads of state and government who participated in the 1995 World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen, Denmark, and other meetings during the first six years of the 1990s called for global eradication of severe poverty through development initiatives in the first decades of the 21st century. This commitment bolsters many international bodies, notably the United Nations (UN), to create a poverty-free world and to advance human development using the world’s abundant human, material, and natural resources. To end multidimensional poverty in less than a generation, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) that is responsible for fighting poverty and promoting human development launched its human poverty index (HPI) in its 1997 Human Development Report (HDR).

Situating HPI on a human development ...