Decomposing multidimensional child poverty and its drivers in the Mouhoun region of Burkina Faso, West Africa

Abstract

Background: The global poverty profile shows that Africa and Asia bear the highest burden of multidimensional child poverty. Child survival and development therefore depend on socioeconomic and environmental factors that surround a child.The aim of this paper is to measure multidimensional child poverty and underpin what drives it among children aged 5 to 18 years in a resource poor region of Burkina Faso.

Methods: Using primary data collected from a cross sectional study of 722 households in the Mouhoun region of Burkina Faso, the Alkire-Foster methodology was applied to estimate and decompose child poverty among children aged 5-18 years. Seven broad dimensions guided by the child poverty literature, data availability and the country's SDGs were used. A binary logistic regression model was applied to identify drivers of multidimensional child poverty in the region.

Results: The highest prevalence of deprivations were recorded in water and sanitation (91%), information and leisure (89%) followed by education (83%). Interestingly, at k = 3 (the sum of weighted indicators that a child must be deprived to be considered multidimensionally poor), about 97% of children are deprived in at least three of the seven dimensions. At k = 4 to k = 6, between 88.7 and 30.9% of children were equally classified as suffering from multidimensional poverty. The odds of multidimensional poverty were reduced in children who belonged to households with a formally educated mother (OR = 0.49) or stable sources of income (OR = 0.31, OR = 0.33). The results equally revealed that being an adolescent (OR = 0.67), residing in the urban area of Boromo (OR = 0.13) and rural area of Safané (OR = 0.61) reduced the odds of child poverty. On the other hand, child poverty was highest among children from the rural area of Yé (OR = 2.74), polygamous households (OR = 1.47, OR = 5.57 and OR = 1.96), households with an adult head suffering from a longstanding illness (OR = 1.61), households with debts (OR = 1.01) and households with above five number of children/woman (OR = 1.49).

Conclusion: Child poverty is best determined by using a multidimensional approach that involves an interplay of indicators and dimensions, bearing in mind its causation.

Keywords: Alkire and Foster methodology; Burkina Faso; Deprivations; Multidimensional child poverty; Poverty decomposition.

Fig. 1

Overview of the Study Area. The map was created by the authors showing the Boucle du Mouhoun region and its three provinces, Nayala, Mouhoun and Bale. The survey was conducted in the two urban areas of Boromo and Dédougou, and three rural areas of Kona, Safané and Yé

Fig. 2

Dimensional Contribution to Mo. The dimensions Nutrition, Water and Sanitation and Education contribute highest to the adjusted multidimensional head count ratio, Mo. This visual representation of dimensional contributions to multidimensional poverty is quite helpful for policy targeting purposes in prioritizing interventions