Sierra Leone

Photo: Dylan Lowthian/UNDP

1. Global MPI 2021 Country Briefing
2. National MPI
3. Joined MPPN: 2018
4. Dimensions Magazine Articles

National MPI

Multidimensional Poor (based on National MPI): 64.8% (in 2019)
Launch date of national MPI: 2019
Institution responsible for national MPI: Ministry of Planning and Economic Development and Statistics Sierra Leone
Dimensions of national MPI: Education, Health, Housing, Living Standards and Energy.

Sierra Leone launches its official national Multidimensional Poverty Index (SL-MPI) on 14 May, 2019. The results of the report show that two thirds of the population of Sierra Leone (64.8%) are multidimensionally poor. This is the incidence of poverty and means that more than 4.6 million people are in need of integrated policies to tackle the simultaneous deprivations which affect them.

The SL-MPI identifies a person as multidimensionally poor if they experience over 40% of the possible deprivations selected for measurement. For Sierra Leone these deprivations are represented by 14 weighted indicators grouped under the five dimensions of Education, Health, Housing, Living Standards and Energy. In Sierra Leone, the findings indicate that, on average, the multidimensionally poor experience deprivations in 58.9% of these indicators. This shows the intensity of the poverty they are experiencing, and it means that in Sierra Leone multidimensionally poor individuals are facing deprivation in more than half of the weighted indicators.

The source of the data for the SL-MPI was the 2017 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey database. The report, Sierra Leone Multidimensional Poverty Index 2019, was prepared by the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development and Statistics Sierra Leone with financial and technical support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and in collaboration with the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) from the University of Oxford.

The Sierra Leone MPI report is available here.

Back to top