The Dominican Republic hosts discussion on Multidimensional Poverty

On 29 September, a group of ministers and key government leaders met to critically discuss and consider the benefits of a multidimensional poverty index in helping to form public policy and improve targeting of government resources. The discussion was hosted by the Vice President Dr Margarita Cedeño and accompanied by OPHI Director Sabina Alkire, who gave a distinguished lecture at the Presidential Palace on the same topic the same evening.  Both events are efforts by the government of the Dominican Republic to make known and spread support for a national Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI).

During the visit, Alkire also met with the technical team that is working to design the national MPI, delving into the key issue of the choice of dimensions and indicators of poverty. OPHI wil provide technical assistance to the government’s efforts both to improve their data collection through an improved questionnaire and to develop the national MPI. You can read further about the lecture on the Vice President’s official website (in the Spanish language) here.

You can see coverage of Alkire’s visit in the Spanish language in the following media: DiarioDigitalRD, DomincaDigital.Net and Listin Diario.

The Dominican Republic is a member of the Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network (MPPN) that has proposed a new data collection tool in the development of a post-2015 multidimensional poverty measure. You can read more about the Network here and read the questionnaire here.