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Multidimensional Poverty Assessment among Adolescent Children in the Mouhoun Region of Burkina Faso, West Africa

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Abstract

Poverty is complex and multidimensional and particularly pronounced in children living in semi-arid West Africa. Unfortunately, few studies have addressed multidimensional child poverty in this region. Using novel data generated from 431 randomly selected households in the Boucle du Mouhoun region in Burkina Faso, the Alkire–Foster methodology was applied to estimate and decompose multidimensional poverty among adolescent children. Ten dimensions guided by the child poverty literature, data availability and the country’s SDGs were used. While deprivations in water and sanitation (89%), health (75%), nutrition (82%), and child labour (48.7%) were found to be more prevalent in the rural areas, child subjective well-being (73%) and child protection (61%) were more pronounced in the urban areas. Analysis of multiple overlaps in dimensions shows that all of the children suffer from deprivations in three or more dimensions simultaneously. Furthermore, when the poverty cut-off values were set at k = 20% (“Vulnerable to Poverty”), k = 30% (“Multidimensionally Poor”) and k = 50% (“Poverty Severity”), close to 95% of children are categorized as being in “Severe Poverty”, 68% as “Multidimensionally Poor”, and 38% as being “Vulnerable to Poverty”. Using binary logistic regressions, household size, age and marital status of household head, locality of child, income source, debt status, education, number of siblings, gender of child, adults and maternal health condition were found to be significantly correlated to poverty vulnerability, multidimensionally poor and poverty severity in the region. The implications of these findings for multidimensional child poverty targeted policies and interventions are discussed.

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Acknowledgements

The data used in the paper was generously funded by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and Save the Children Finland. The authors are sincerely grateful to these two institutions for the permission granted to utilise the database. An earlier version of the paper benefitted from helpful comments and suggestions from Enrique Delamonica (UNICEF Nigeria), Tiff van Huysen, Thomas Yameogo, Cynthia Lum and Kangbéni Dimobe. The insightful comments and suggestions from two anonymous reviewers are gratefully acknowledged. The usual caveat applies.

Availability of data and materials

The data that support the study can be obtained from UNICEF Ouagadougou and Save the Children Finland upon request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. West African Science Service Center on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use, Competence Center, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

    William M. Fonta

  2. The Earth Institute, Columbia University in the City of New York, New York, NY, USA

    William M. Fonta

  3. United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

    Sylvain F. Nkwenkeu

  4. Save the Children Finland, New Delhi, India

    Mukesh Lath

  5. Save the Children Finland, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

    Amelie Hollebecque

  6. Save the Children International, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

    Boukari Ouedraogo & Seidi Sirajo

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  1. William M. Fonta
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  2. Sylvain F. Nkwenkeu
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Contributions

W.M.F: designed and executed the study, analysed the data and wrote the paper. S.F.N: collaborated with the study design and the writing of the paper. M.L: collaborated with the study design and the writing of the paper. A.H; B.O; S.S: collaborated with the study design and critically reviewed the manuscript.

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Correspondence to William M. Fonta.

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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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All ethical clearance concerning study participants and data were sort and obtained by UNICEF and Save the Children prior to the study.

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Fonta, W.M., Nkwenkeu, S.F., Lath, M. et al. Multidimensional Poverty Assessment among Adolescent Children in the Mouhoun Region of Burkina Faso, West Africa. Child Ind Res 12, 1287–1318 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-018-9575-y

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