Postponed – OPHI Summer School 2020: Multidimensional Poverty Measurement & Analysis

Organised by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), University of Oxford, to be held from 10^th to 22^nd August 2020, in Bangkok, Thailand.

We will be continuously monitoring the situation with the Coronavirus outbreak. Dependent on how this matter progresses, the OPHI Summer School 2020 may be relocated to Oxford or given virtually. We will make a further announcement once a final decision has been made. 

The Summer School is aimed at those who are working on, or actively interested in gaining skills in multidimensional poverty measurement, particularly professional staff of national offices of statistics and government ministries that deal with poverty reduction, professionals from international development institutions, academics, and doctoral students. The Summer School will be led by OPHI Director Sabina Alkire and the OPHI team, including researchers and academics with extensive experience of developing Multidimensional Poverty Indices, and policy evaluation. The purpose of this intensive Summer School is to provide a technical introduction, practical application and policy overview to multidimensional poverty measurement using the Alkire-Foster method. Upon completing the course, students will have the skills required to construct and analyse a multidimensional poverty measure and to describe its policy relevance and its usefulness for analytical purposes. Drawing on Amartya Sen’s capability approach and empirical examples of National and Global Multidimensional Poverty Indices (MPIs), the conceptual and empirical motivation for measuring multidimensional poverty will be presented, as well as the full suite of measurement tools. The following topics will be covered:

• Unidimensional poverty measures;
• Methodologies to analyse multidimensional poverty and the problems each methodology best solves;
• The Alkire-Foster methodology of multidimensional poverty measurement;
• Measurement design – purpose, unit of measure, dimensions, indicators, cut-offs and weights;
• Estimation of multidimensional poverty and interpretation of the results;
• Subgroup decomposition, dimensional break-down and mapping;
• Multidimensional poverty changes over time;
• Interpretation and analysis of multidimensional poverty, including impact evaluation;
• Institutions, policies, and communication.

Course Format: The Summer School will consist of two weeks of instruction and working group sessions, taught in English. Each participant needs to bring a laptop with Stata to do the problem sets. Throughout the Summer School, participants will be actively involved in discussions and working through problem sets. Dates and Location: The course runs from Monday 10th August 2020 to Friday 21st August 2020 with a final exam on Saturday 22nd August 2020 (non-compulsory). We expect to make the final confirmation of the venue of the Summer School very soon. Costs: The course fee is as follows:

• $850 USD for all students, and for academic researchers based in developing countries;
• $2000 USD for professionals based in developing countries; and
• $4000 USD for professionals based in developed countries.

In addition, participants will need to pay for accommodation, travel fares and the cost of the Stata software if they do not already use it. Additionally, please note that you may need to apply for a visa – at your own cost.  Course Application Information