Security Challenges and PPIs of The Global South Nations

PPI is one of the most reliable tools at the moment in determining the level of poverty in the Global South Countries(Developing Nations). A number of questions are set for data collection to measure the living conditions of the population to determine the outcome regarding whether that family and cluster of families and eventually a developing Nation could be termed poor or has made appreciable progress out of poverty.

In Nigeria, the questions are centered on shelter and related comforts, household assets and affordability of education. PPI has explained that the data formed the basis for creating the set of PPI questions and determinants for Nigeria were obtained from the Local Statistics Agency(NBS). This is credible enough, but there is the need to review these determinants in view of the security implication on poverty growth rate in Nigeria. Insecurity has induced so much poverty in Nigeria in recent times than any known factor at the moment. The growing number of Internally Displaced Persons(IDPs) are possibly those who were living above the poverty line before they became forced below the lines.

In rebasing the PPIs, I think questions on how many members of a family have been exposed or died as a result of insecurity and the impact of that on a family is critical to actually scaling the PPIs in Nigeria.

It is quite understandable that PPI team might not possibly looking at root causes of poverty or the reverse, but it is also possible that dealing with the issue of insecurity is in itself a significant progress out of poverty in most of the Global South Nations(Latin America, Asia, Sub Saharan Africa etc).

The efforts in developing this critical tool are nevertheless well appreciated and commendable.