Journal of Socioeconomics and Development Vol 2, No 2, October 2019, 125 - 134 DOI: 10.31328/jsed.v2i2.1219 Widyagama Analysis of Deprivations Suffered by Children Under Five in Benin Fawaz A. Adéchinan Aminou¹ and Pam Zahonogo 2 1 Faculty of Economics and Management, University of Abomey Calavi, Benin 2 Faculty of Economics and Management, University of Ouaga 2, Burkina Faso (Received December 31, 2019; Accepted January 15, 2020; Published January 20, 2020) ABSTRACT. Children are seriously affected by poverty and suffer particular deprivations. In addition, their situation is most of the time ignored in the strategies devoted to tackling poverty. This study examined the multidimensional poverty of children under five in Benin by identifying its determinants. It used the data from the demographic and health surveys in Benin from 2011-2012 and adopted the approach by Alkire & Foster (2011) to generate multidimensional poverty profiles of children. The weightings of the dimensions were generated by multiple correspondence analysis. The GLM and Logit models were used to identify the driving factors of child deprivation. Findings indicate that 54 percent of children were multidimensionally poor when the poverty line k = 1 against 32 percent of poor children when k = 3. Nutrition and sanitation dimensions had the highest relative contributions of 41.12 and 28.77 percent respectively to the global multidimensional poverty index. Keywords: Alkire and Foster, multidimensional poverty, nutrition, health JEL Classification: D63, I32, O10 INTRODUCTION The issues of poverty have received particular attention from the various development actors in recent decades. In a 1972 speech on the situation of people in developing countries, the former World Bank president Robert McNamara, said that "it is time for the countries of the South to be more concerned with more basic human needs that is to improve the nutrition, housing, health, education and employment of their populations". Indeed, after a long period of macroeconomic stabilization policies contained in the structural adjustment programs which outline that governments must reduce their spending and rationalize their investment policies. The program was implemented by reducing subsidies on inputs, rationing the transport of agricultural products to reduce costs and even plunge people into poverty and underdevelopment in the short term. Donors and financial partners have become aware of the need to implement social policies to combat chronic poverty. For example, the 2000 United Nations (UN) General Assembly indicated poverty reduction as a Millennium Development Goal (MDG) that placed poverty issues at the core of development strategies and academic analyzes. However, like most of sub-Saharan Africa countries, Benin has been implementing since the advent of these MDGs in 2000 a national strategy for poverty reduction for sustainable development. The various policies implemented by the government contained in the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs). The evaluation of the 2003-2005 Poverty Reduction Strategy has shown that these policies have not achieved the objectives set in terms of growth and poverty reduction. Two other poverty reduction strategies have been developed (Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy, 2007-2009 GPRS and 2011-2015 GPRS). The policies implemented as part of these strategies have significantly reduced the poverty rate. Indeed, the evaluation of these strategies shows that over the period 2006-2011, monetary poverty fell very slightly by 3.2 percent in general and in particular by 10.29 percent in urban areas. * Corresponding author email: mzapate2020@yahoo.fr ISSN 2615-6075 online; ISSN 2615-6946 print @UWG Press, 2020 OJS http://publishing-widyagama.ac.id/ejournal- v2/index.php/jsed/