Dictator Zenawi's Ethiopia Ranked the 2nd Poorest Country in the World

A new measure to evaluate poverty around the world

BEIRUT - The U.N. has decided to switch from the Human Poverty Index they have been using for 13 years in their yearly Human Development Report to a new index developed by Oxford University. It is called the Multidimensional Poverty Index - or MPI.

The former index, the Human Poverty Index is based on three factors: life expectancy, literacy, and standard of living.

The new index, the MPI takes this data into account, but also uses new measures « reflecting a range of deprivations that affect a person's life," including whether a household has decent toilets, clean drinking water reachable within less than 30 minutes on foot, electricity, proportions of school-aged children enrolled in schooling, and whether any member of a household is malnourished, say researchers from the Oxford University.

According to these standards, a household is considered « multidimensionally poor » if it's deprived of more than 30% of the ten indicators used by the MPI.

According to the MPI of the 25 poorest countries researchers surveyed, 24 are located in Africa. The ten poorest countries in the world are the
following:
1. Nigeria
2. Ethiopia
3. Mali
4. Burkina Faso
5. Burundi
6. Somalia
7. The Central African Republic
8. Liberia
9. Guinea
10. Sierra Leone.