The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) is currently one of the most widely used and advanced measures of non-monetary poverty. It focuses on three fundamental dimensions of human wellbeing: Education, Health and Living standards. Though it is sometimes reported at household level, the MPI is by essence an individual-based measure of poverty. The MPI is computed on the basis of the Alkire-and-Foster method, which allows sufficient flexibility to adapt to country-specific parameters.
At national level 887,508 people are found to be severely poor and 3,139,395 moderately poor, so the total number of poor people are 4,026,903 and this represents 30.4%. As expected, rural areas have both a higher number of poor people (3,502,686) and also a higher incidence of poverty, at 37.3% compared to 13.4% in urban areas.
At the provincial level, the Western and Southern have the same percentage of poor people(35%) while Eastern has 34.6% whereas City of Kigali has the lowest percentage of poor people (9.5%). This finding differs slightly from the recent censuses in terms of disparity across provinces.
In 2012 census found the highest poverty rate in the Western and Eastern provinces with 42% each. The disparities found between provinces in terms of non-monetary poverty also exist when it comes to monetary poverty, as the poverty rate varies from 14% in Kigali to 37%, 41%, 42% in the Eastern, Southern and Northern provinces respectively, and finally reaches 47% in the western.