Adriana Conconi appointed as the new MPPN Director
Adriana Conconi has been appointed the new Director of the Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network (MPPN), a global coalition of over 60 governments and 20 international organizations dedicated to advancing multidimensional poverty measurement. OPHI serves as the secretariat to the MPPN – a pioneering south-to-south network that exchanges best practice on developing and using national Multidimensional Poverty Indices (MPIs) to guide efficient poverty reduction policies.
Adriana Conconi succeeds Gonzalo Hernández Licona as Director. Gonzalo Hernández, Sabina Alkire and John Hammock were all pivotal in the creation of the MPPN in 2013. Gonzalo’s leadership of the MPPN covered the COVID-19 pandemic period which resulted in a shift from in-person to online networking and hybrid events. He helped the Network share how they were responding to the pandemic using multidimensional poverty data and measurement techniques. During his tenure and despite these challenges, the MPPN welcomed Argentina, Bolivia, Cambodia, India, Maldives, Somalia, South Sudan, Uzbekistan and CAF – Development Bank of Latin America as participants. The MPPN also continued to increase the visibility of national MPIs as policy tools at high-level fora, including five Side Events at the UN General Assembly and three Annual Meetings.
Before his role as MPPN Director, Gonzalo was the Executive Secretary (2005–2018) of CONEVAL (National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy) in Mexico and launched the world’s first MPI in 2009. This year, OPHI and the United Nations Development Programme published a new handbook authored by Gonzalo entitled How to Use National MPIs as a Policy Tool: From Metrics to Policy which built on his experiences at CONEVAL and the MPPN. Through interviews and case studies with a range of policy actors in the post-pandemic period, Gonzalo explores the strategic tools and skills required by ‘policy entrepreneurs’ to introduce and institutionalise a new form of poverty measurement in government.
OPHI Director Sabina Alkire thanked Gonzalo warmly on behalf of the MPPN: “We are so grateful that Gonzalo, who was a partner in the ideation and founding of the MPPN, has been able to guide the MPPN over the past five years. He has been a wonderful spokesperson and a warm friend to all policy actors and statisticians using Multidimensional Poverty Indices across the world. We are thrilled that Gonzalo has agreed to become the Inaugural OPHI MPI Champion pioneering our new programme for leaders who advocated and used the MPI during their time in office/as public servants and have now moved out from that office.”
Taking up the helm of the MPPN will be Adriana Conconi. Adriana has a long association with OPHI, where she spent nearly a decade holding various positions, including Executive Director and Director of Policy and Outreach. Adriana is also currently the Director of Data and Impact Evaluation at VR, Brazil, where she leads the development of data-driven strategies designed both to expand access to essential goods and services for Brazilian workers and their families and to measure and maximize the company’s social impact in alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals. Previously, Adriana acted as Director of Strategy at Harvard’s Center for International Development (CID), where she oversaw the Center's strategic planning and fundraising, and managed interdisciplinary research initiatives and global policy engagements and as Poverty and Resilience Specialist at UNDP's Regional Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean (RBLAC).
The role of Director is to deepen country engagement, strengthen technical cooperation, and position multidimensional poverty as a key issue in the global development agenda in tumultuous times, advancing Agenda 2030 and considering what is to follow. “It’s an honour to take on the role of Director of the MPPN at such a pivotal time. Around the world, countries are seeking better tools to understand and respond to poverty in all its dimensions. Building on Gonzalo’s work and what came before, I look forward to working closely with governments and partners to strengthen the use of multidimensional poverty measures for more effective, equitable and resilient policymaking.”