Order No. 1 of the Head of the Bureau of National Statistics of the Agency for Strategic Planning and Reforms validating the Methodology for measuring poverty indicators.

The scope of this Order is to standardize the measurement of poverty indicators using household living standards survey data. The document establishes internationally comparable statistical methods for calculating poverty and defines key concepts such as income used for consumption, subsistence minimum, purchasing power parity (PPP), equivalence scales, and deprivation. The methodology identifies absolute poverty, measured against the national subsistence minimum, as the primary poverty indicator and provides formulas for calculating the share of the population living below this threshold. It also sets out procedures for measuring poverty against international PPP-based poverty lines to support Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) monitoring.
The methodology further describes how the country measures income inequality and relative poverty. It outlines the calculation of income distribution groups, quintiles and deciles, the Gini coefficient, the funds ratio, poverty depth, poverty severity, and purchasing power indicators.
Relative poverty is assessed using thresholds equal to 50% and 60% of median income, with poverty rates calculated from household income distributions. In addition, the document introduces subjective poverty measures based on citizens’ self-assessments of their material well-being through quality-of-life surveys, enabling poverty analysis by region, sex, age, employment status, and settlement type.
A significant part of the methodology is devoted to multidimensional poverty measurement. It establishes a National Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) using the Alkire-Foster approach, covering five equally weighted dimensions: education, health, environment, housing conditions, and living standards/financial accessibility. Specific deprivation thresholds are defined for each indicator, and households whose weighted deprivation score exceeds a set threshold are classified as multidimensionally poor.
The methodology also introduces a Multidimensional Child Poverty Index based on the European Union’s child deprivation framework, assessing deprivation in areas such as clothing, nutrition, learning resources, leisure, housing conditions, and access to essential goods and services. These multidimensional indicators support SDG 1.2.2 and provide a broader understanding of poverty beyond income measures.