Amudha* is a 14-year-old student in 10th grade in a school located in a small rural area in Nagamalai Pudukottai, Madurai. She lives with her father, mother, sister, nephew, and niece.

In 2015, the United Nations member states adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Its core mandate is the improvement in the quality people’s lives while leaving no one behind. For this reason, a set of 17 goals – the SDGs – were defined with the aim of monitoring the progress of each country. In particular, Target 1.2 is concerned with reducing the proportion of men, women, and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions by at least half, according to national definitions, by 2030.

Until a few years ago, the estimation of poverty in Mozambique was based on personal consumption. Over time, however, the concept of poverty and how it is measured has evolved. According to Finorio Castigo, specialist at the Directorate of Economic and Financial Studies (DEEF) at the Ministry of Economy and Finance, this change is reflected, for example, in the Action Plan for the Reduction of Absolute Poverty (PARPA I).

This edition tells the story of how two multidimensional poverty indexes (MPIs) were created. One was constructed in Mozambique, a country of 29 million inhabitants, which has become the first African nation to have an official multidimensional poverty measurement. The second was developed in Andhra Pradesh, a state in India with a population of nearly 50 million people, which is the first in that nation to adopt the MPI. This is a significant milestone given that India is the country with the largest number of multidimensionally poor people in the world.