Multidimensional Measurements of Poverty Analysis in Urban Areas of Afar Regional State

In view of the multi faceted nature of poverty, a multidimensional approach is needed to understand the complex phenomenon of poverty or to evaluate household or individual wellbeing. This study examines the extent of poverty using the data collected from three selected urban areas of Afar Regional State through structured questioner of 186 households in 2013/2014 and the Alkire and Foster (2007) counting approach and FGT poverty measure approach were employed in the analysis. The study measure multidimensional deprivation in seven dimensions education, health, source of energy for cooking, electrification, house quality, house congestion and Per capita income. The result shows that the multidimensional deprivation far exceeds the unidimensional poverty. It has been estimated that about 63.2 percent and 33.9 percent of the households are poor in Alkire and Foster counting approach and unidimensionally approach respectively. This shows that, Alkire and Foster dual cut off approach is the best estimation to measure the magnitude of multidimensional poverty and the level of deprivation in many dimensions. Using the intersection method at k=1, 87.5 percent of the total households are deprived in one or more dimensions. Among dimensions, above 70.97 percent of household head deprivation was due to lack of source of energy for cooking, i. e. the highest contributor to overall multidimensional poverty. Finally, the results of the dual cutoff and counting approach with the unidimensional poverty approach shows that the former one is the best suitable approach in estimation of poverty analysis using different methods of poverty estimation.