Panama Launched a National Child MPI

On September 12, Panama launched the National Child Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), which is the first official child MPI in Latin-American. The Child MPI has five dimensions (Health, education, water and sanitation, housing and child protection) and 10 indicators (two per dimension). It uses nested weights and a poverty line equal to 30%, meaning that a child is multidimensionally poor if she is deprived in 3 or more indicators.

The selection of dimensions and indicators was based on the Convention on the Rights of the Child, National legislations and policies and a large number of public consultations.

According to the results, 32.8% of children younger than 18 years are multidimensionally poor, with an intensity of poverty of 45.6%. The National Child MPI is 0.148, meaning that poor children in Panama face 14.9% of the total number of possible deprivations in the society if all children in Panama were poor and deprived in all indictors. The indigenous provinces face the highest level of child multidimensional poverty in the country and Herrera and Los Santos the lowest.

In the same day, Panama also presented the figures of the National MPI for 2018. For this year the incidence of multidimensional poverty was 19.0%, with an intensity of 42.4% and a National MPI of 0.081.

 

Panama Child MPI report is available here (Spanish)