New Delhi: The currently-used international poverty line is misleading, and billions of foreign aid dollars could be utilised more effectively if the line was more accurate statistically, a study revealed on Tuesday.

The international poverty line, set by the World Bank, averages national poverty lines across low-income countries to ensure cross-country comparability based on food and non-food expenses. As per the new statistical analysis, published in the journal Humanities and Social Science Communications, there are many faults in the estimation of the line.

A team led by Dr Michail Moatsos, a research fellow in the Department of International Development, King’s College London, said that the current poverty line shows a very skewed image of poverty, citing the case of Covid-19 which he believes impoverished many individuals but they are not represented properly because of the fault in this line. The main problem with the current method, the team said, lies in the comparisons of ‘purchasing power’.