LocationsVulnerability is not only about being poor
September 4, 2025
It was in early September 2022—Nepal was just beginning to breathe again after two long years of COVID pandemic: lockdowns, fear, and hardship. With field travel restrictions finally lifted, I was eager to meet people in person again as part of my monitoring visits. I travelled to a village in Karnali - one of the lowest HDI province in Nepal. The air was thick with the smell of damp soil from the recent monsoon, and the roads seemed to carry the weight of what the country had just endured.
A close up picture of a woman supported by UNDP's Sambodhan initiative
I was there to observe how emergency safety nets had reached households marked as “vulnerable” in official registries. On paper, the idea was simple: identify vulnerable families, deliver relief supplies, and emergency cash.
On my way, I met one of the beneficiaries listed as vulnerable. She stood in the doorway of her mud-brick home, a toddler clinging to her legs while her two daughters drew on a straw mat. Her husband worked seasonal labor jobs, and they had no regular income. By standard definitions, she was poor.
A woman holds her cheque book provided by the Rastriya Banijya Bank
Rethinking vulnerability?
Too often, vulnerability is reduced to poverty; the absence of income, measured against thresholds or consumption levels. But as I have learned working on crisis response, social protection, and peacebuilding in Nepal, vulnerability is not only about what you earn or what you own. It’s about what you lack—in power, access, safety, dignity, and voice. In practice, vulnerability is a complex and nuanced experience—shaped by context, identity, and circumstances—and it doesn’t always neatly align with official definitions of poverty.
UNDp Nepal's Satish Pandey interacts with a beneficiary of the Sambodhan initiative
By the UN definition, vulnerability is shaped by “physical, social, economic, and environmental factors” that increase the susceptibility to harm. It can be structural, social, political, or situational. I have met people who are not poor by the books but are excluded from public life and services: those without ID cards, without property rights, without platforms to speak. A young person from a marginalized caste group may have a job today, yet discrimination and lack of visibility still keep them at risk. These are not abstract concepts; they are lived realities that traditional poverty indicators miss. Moreover, I have observed that vulnerability is often misused as a permanent label, frequently tied to ethnicity, caste, or minority status.
During the Covid pandemic the project supported vulnerable woman.
In my work, I have met many individuals—especially women and members of marginalized communities—who continue to face exclusion simply because they were once considered vulnerable, regardless of the progress they’ve made in lifetime. This label is too often inherited across generations, reinforcing discrimination especially in Nepal. Although vulnerability is not a fixed identity, but a temporary condition shaped by various risk factors. For instance, someone earning as low as NPR 10,000 (USD 70 approx) a month might be economically vulnerable, but if they have good health, education, and strong family support, they may be far less vulnerable than an affluent person facing chronic illness and lacking care. It is essential to recognize that while single-dimensional vulnerability may be manageable, overlapping vulnerabilities across sectors—such as health, education, or security—can significantly hinder progress toward human development.
A woman performing her daily chores next to her house
COVID pandemic: a wake-up call
During the pandemic, the Government of Nepal along with many development agencies introduced emergency support measures—such as food relief and cash assistance—aimed primarily at those classified as “poor” based on conventional income or consumption indicators. However, the narrow definition of ‘poor’ failed to capture the full spectrum of people at risk.
Many individuals and groups who were not officially recognized as “poor” were nevertheless experiencing acute forms of hardship. For instance, women facing domestic violence were trapped in unsafe homes with no legal protection or access to shelters. Persons with disabilities struggled to obtain vital information or services because public messaging and facilities weren’t accessible. Dalit families continued to face systemic caste-based discrimination, limiting their ability to access relief equitably. And thousands of informal workers—such as daily wage labourers and street vendors—lost their livelihoods overnight, with no savings or social security to fall back on. Their hardship was real, but invisible to poverty registries.
Woman supported by the Sambodhan initiative expressing their joy.
Globally, this is not new. The United Nations Development Programme’s Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) recognizes deprivations beyond income. Yet in practice, aid and social protection programmes too often default to simple poverty lines, leaving entire groups unseen.
As the National Project Manager for UNDP’s Temporary Basic Income (TBI) initiative for marginalized women, I helped develop the Socio-Economic Vulnerability Assessment Tool (SEVIMS)–a tool that goes beyond earnings to capture layered disadvantages: caste, ethnicity, disability, remoteness, exposure to violence or disasters, access to services, and gaps in legal identity. While not perfect, SEVIMS offered a more human lens to understand and respond to vulnerability.
The multidimensional poverty index 203
This is especially urgent under Nepal’s federal system, where local governments are on the frontline of service delivery and crisis response. Without robust, multidimensional data, decisions risk being based on visible poverty indicators alone, missing those whose needs are hidden. SEVIMS pilots in several municipalities have shown promise in addressing this gap by integrating indicators like health, education, social exclusion, and climate risk into local systems, linking data down to individual households for real-time mapping.
A woman helps her differently abled partner to wash his hands
To scale up, Nepal must institutionalize such frameworks across local governments. That includes training municipal staff, mandating intersectional data collection (disaggregated by gender, caste, ethnicity, and geography), and link assessments with existing social protection registries. Only then can we ensure that support reaches those who need it most—and move from reactive responses to transformative resilience. The lesson is clear: when we narrowly define vulnerability as poverty it excludes those at greatest risk leaving behind those in need of protection and recovery.
A staff using the SEVIMS system
From poverty-based to inclusion-driven
We need a shift from poverty-based targeting to inclusion-driven approaches. This means investing in systems that capture diverse risks—such as housing, disability, and service access—and linking individuals to public services down to the household level or numbers. A real-time, geo-coded tool can track progress and regress in human development, helping governments move from blanket responses to precise, need-based support.
A lady identifying her house code.
Countries like Brazil and South Africa show what's possible. Brazil’s Cadastro Único and South Africa’s National Development Plan both use multidimensional targeting to reach structurally excluded populations—not just those below an income line. Nepal can do the same by rooting policies in community realities—not just national averages—and by making sure the invisibles are finally seen, counted, and supported.
Vulnerability is not a box to check; it’s a condition to understand. And reducing vulnerability is not only about alleviating poverty. It's about restoring dignity, agency, and hope.
A group of woman share their sorrows before the Sambodhan intiiative changed their lives
