downturns, inflationary pressures, and disruptions in employment or service provision. That these MPI headcounts are lower than Yangon’s income poverty rate reflects a genuine feature of urban poverty: proximity to schools, clinics and markets provides a partial buffer against non-monetary deprivations that keeps income-poor households out of MPI poverty even where incomes remain insufficient.8 This is why the MPI headcount alone understates urban vulnerability: households currently outside the poverty threshold carry the structural risk profiles of the poor and remain highly sensitive to transitions into multidimensional deprivation when access to available services is constrained or withdrawn. Across all three township patterns, namely conflict clusters, structurally depressed localities, and periurban pockets, the analytical implication is consistent: geographic targeting at the state or region level is a necessary but insufficient guide to where poverty is most acute. Within-state heterogeneity is large enough that township-level evidence materially changes the prioritization picture. 8 UNDP (2025). Urban Poverty: Unpacking Yangon. L AYE R S O F DE P R I VAT I O N : M u l t i di m en si on a l Pov er t y i n M y anmar 17