OPHI Media Archive: 2010-2019
2019
Statement to the First Regular Session of the UNDP Executive Board, by UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner
January 21, 2019
UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner: “… in collaboration with Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, we have advanced our work on the Multidimensional Poverty Index to identify those population groups facing severe and intersecting deprivations. Beyond being an official poverty statistic and improving our understanding of poverty, the Multidimensional Poverty Index is an instrument for enhancing governance, by acting as a policy coordination tool, helping to improve national information systems, and fostering accountability of governments.”
Read the full Statement here.
The Bhutanese: 'Ex-PM’s Key-Note Address at Oxford Focuses on Monarchy, Sovereignty, Culture, Democracy, Environment, GNH and Welfare'
January 12, 2019
The Former Prime Minister Dasho Tshering Tobgay delivered the main key note address at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford University on 9th January as the main event of the three-day International Society of Bhutan Studies (ISBS) conference.
Read the full article here.
The Bhutanese: 'A Deep Dive into Bhutan'
January 12, 2019
The International Society for Bhutan Studies (ISBS) inaugural conference in Magdalen College, Oxford University made the important first step of discussing and studying the diverse and less discussed aspects of Bhutan in a large international academic setting. More importantly, it set up and gave shape to an independent international ‘Bhutan studies’ group in its own right.
Read the full article here.
2018
Viet Nam News, ‘Much to Do in War on Poverty’: an article about multidimensional poverty in Viet Nam
December 20, 2018
Multidimensional poverty (MDP) in Việt Nam witnessed a significant drop from 15.9 per cent in 2012 to 9.1 per cent in 2016 with some six million people escaping from poverty.
Read the full article here.
Daily O: 'Good News: Poverty Rate in India Has Halved Over Ten Years’
September 21, 2018
As the rupee continues to weaken and fuel prices continue to inflate, things look bleak for India on economic terms. But there is some good news, and one that is definitely worth celebrating. According to the 2018 global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), almost 271 million people in India have moved out of poverty in the decade since 2005-06.
Read the full article here.
El Pais, Spain ‘La ONU Presenta un Nuevo Mapa dela Pobreza Global más allá del Dinero’
Septiembre 21, 2018
1.300 millones de personas son pobres en todos los sentidos de la palabra, porque no tienen apenas ingresos o carecen de acceso a agua potable, alimentos suficientes o electricidad.
New York Times ‘Survey of 104 Countries Says 1.3 Billion Live In Poverty’
A survey of 104 countries comprising 5.5 billion people that looked at health, education and living standards has found that some 1.3 billion people are living in poverty — including 662 million children.
The Multidimensional Poverty Index released Thursday by the U.N. Development Program and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative says 46 percent of the 1.3 billion are considered to be severely impoverished.
Read the full article here.
AP News ‘Survey of 104 Countries Says 1.3 Billion Live In Poverty’
September 20, 2018
A survey of 104 countries comprising 5.5 billion people that looked at health, education and living standards has found that some 1.3 billion people are living in poverty — including 662 million children.
The Multidimensional Poverty Index released Thursday by the U.N. Development Program and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative says 46 percent of the 1.3 billion are considered to be severely impoverished.
Read the full article here.
Deutsche Welle: ‘Multidimensional Poverty Index: India Halves Poverty in Ten Years’
September 20, 2018
A new report shows the percentage of Indians living in poverty is half what it was a decade ago. But child poverty around the world is still rife, affecting nearly two-thirds of those under 18 in sub-Saharan Africa.
Read the full article here.
2017
My Republica: 28.5 % population poor in view of MPI
December 20, 2017
The report shows that the MPI rate is higher in the Province 6 and Province 2 where 50 percent people are living in poverty. They have no access to basic facilities like cooking fuel, sanitation, electricity, education and health. This figure is 30 percent in the Province 5 and 15 percent in the Province 3, 1 and 4.
Read the full article here.
The Rising Nepal: 29% Nepalis living in multi-dimensional poverty: Report
The Rising Nepal: A report of Nepal Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) showed that about 28.6 per cent of Nepal’s population is multi-dimensionally poor. The Nepal MPI survey, the first of its kind conducted in Nepal to calculate the level of poverty dimensions, was unveiled by the National Planning Commission on Wednesday.
This report was prepared by the NPC in cooperation with the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) at the University of Oxford.
Read the full article here.
The Kathmandu Post: 29 out of 100 people poor
December 21, 2017
This is the first time Nepal had used MPI as an official tool to measure national poverty. Until now, Nepal was using income threshold of Rs19,262 per person per year to gauge poverty. This method assumes that a person who is able to earn at least Rs19,262 per year is non-poor, because the amount is considered adequate to meet basic caloric needs and purchase essential non-food items.
Read the full article here.
2016
America Economía Publishes Article by OPHI Co-Founder John Hammock about UNGA Side Event
July 10, 2016
America Economía, a magazine on economics in Latin America, published an article by OPHI Co-Founder John Hammock about the 22 September UNGA Side Event. The op-ed discusses outcomes of the meeting, in particular the agreement on the important role that multidimensional poverty indices (MPIs) must play in addressing the Sustainable Development Goals.
Latin American countries have had a leadership role in developing and promoting the use of MPIs, and several of them were represented at the meeting, which included statements from President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia, President Juan Orlando Hernández of Honduras, President Luis Guillermo Solís of Costa Rica, and Minister Gabriela Rosero of Ecuador.
Read the full article (in Spanish) here.
Cuban Newspaper Granma Publishes Article on MPI Workshop,'Pobreza: un reto multidimensional'
September 29, 2016
The Cuban newspaper Granma published an article on the Multidimensional Poverty Index Workshop carried out in Havana, Cuba, on September 29 and 30. Sabina Alkire and John Hammock, from OPHI, participated in the workshop.
Foster interviewed by Chilean newspaper Pulso on poverty measurement
OPHI Research Associate James Foster was interviewed by Chilean newspaper Pulso following his attendance at a seminar on ‘Multidimensional Poverty: Incorporating Environments and Networks’ hosted by the Ministry of Social Development.
In the article Foster talks about the benefits of developing regional and country specific MPIs, which can be tailored to fit differing contexts and priorities. In the case of Chile, he discusses how the inclusion of a new dimension, environment and network, adds an interesting and important aspect to the measurement. Data obtained through questions in the National Socioeconomic Characterisation Survey (CASEN) will be used by the Ministry to inform policy which can help to tackle poverty in the country.
He also highlights how the MPI and income poverty measures work complementarily to form a detailed picture of poverty, commenting that this approach can ‘analyse what is really going on to people in their lives’ allowing governments to ‘do something about it’.
Pakistan’s The Daily Times reports on role of the MPI in government’s ‘Vision 2025’ strategy
August 9, 2016
Pakistani newspaper The Daily Times reported on a speech given by the Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Reform, Ahsan Iqbal, on the government’s inclusive growth strategy ‘Vision 2025’, which seeks to see Pakistan emerge as one of the top 25 world economies by 2025.
In the speech Prof. Iqbal highlighted the role of Pakistan’s MPI in helping to reduce inequalities. In recognition that income inequality is only one aspect of inequality in Pakistan, he said the MPI will help the government to grasp the challenges faced in other areas such as gender, region and digital divides.
You can read the full article here.
Allafrica: Africa: Thirty African Nations Cut ‘Multidimensional’ Poverty in ‘Runaway Success’
June 9, 2016
According to analysis from the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative at the University of Oxford, 30 of 35 sub-Saharan African countries analysed for changes to poverty levels over time reduced multidimensional poverty significantly
The 2016 Global MPI was launched yesterday. What does it say? – OxfamBlogs
Oxfam Blogs covered how the 2016 MPI features 102 countries in total, including 75 per cent of the world’s population, or 5.2 billion people. Of this proportion, 30 per cent of people (1.6 billion) are identified as multidimensionally poor.
2014
New York Times article compares OPHI poverty figures with World Bank’s poverty line
The New York Times quoted the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) 2014 in an article on the progress against poverty.
The article by Anna Bernasek references the Global MPI 2014 calculations that put the number of multidimensionally poor people in the world at 1.6 billion. This in contrast to the World Bank’s $1.25 a day income-based estimation that has found 1 billion people to be in poverty worldwide.
The article states that although varying definitions of extreme poverty present measurement challenges, ‘still, there is agreement that extreme poverty has been on the decline since the mid-1990s and that the decline has accelerated since 2000.’
The Global MPI was calculated for 108 countries by OPHI in June 2014. Of the 1.6 billion people identified as multidimensionally poor, most live in South Asia (52%), followed by Sub-Saharan Africa (29%). The majority of MPI poor people (71%) live in Middle Income Countries. The calculations also revealed that nearly all countries that reduced MPI poverty also reduced inequality among the poor. Of 34 countries for which were studied for changes over time, 30 – covering 98% of the poor people across all 34 – significantly reduced multidimensional poverty.
Nigerian newspaper This Day Live publishes article on Global MPI 2014
The Nigerian newspaper This Day Live published an article on the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) 2014. The Global MPI briefing for Nigeria was referenced by former minister of the National Planning Commission Dr. Shamsuddeen Usman, who delivered a keynote address in Abuja at the 25th anniversary lecture of the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation. Usman noted that policymakers need to empathise and have a feel of what poverty really is in order to design effective alleviation programmes.
The Global MPI, calculated by OPHI in June 2014, revealed that 43.3 per cent of the Nigerian population are multidimensionally poor, including 25.3 per cent who live in severe poverty. A further 19.3 per cent of the population are vulnerable to poverty. The findings also showed that 57.5% of those living in rural areas are multidimensionally poor.
Huffington Post publishes article on social isolation by OPHI Scholar in Residence, Kim Samuel
October 21, 2014
The Huffington Post published an article by OPHI Scholar in Residence Kim Samuel titled ‘The Youngest Victims: Combating the Social Isolation of Ebola Orphans’, in which she presses for the global community to treat the outbreak of Ebola as not only a public health crisis but also a humanitarian crisis.
In the post, Samuel cautions against ignoring the emotional health of children affected by Ebola and highlights the social isolation they can face. She writes: ‘For younger children, the reality of being orphaned by Ebola is even worse. With no means to provide for themselves, they are dependent on adult care — yet even relatives are often too afraid to take them in. Children tell of being chased away by family, even though they’ve tested negative for the virus.’
Launch of the Global MPI 2014 picked up in the media and blogosphere
June 19, 2014
The index was the focus of a feature in prestigious magazine The Atlantic. ‘Good news: Economists at Oxford have come up with a better method for measuring global poverty,’ states the strapline. ‘[The Global MPI 2014] is being touted as the most accurate reflection of the world’s poor, a sort of census of the global impoverished population,’ it goes on to say.
June 16, 2014
Voice of America (VOA) also covered the launch of the Global MPI 2014, publishing an article titled ‘Poverty Called Multidimensional‘. The article features an interview with OPHI’s Director Sabina Alkire in which she explains the need for a multidimensional measure of poverty to complement income measures.
“It needs a measure that looks at the other aspects of people’s lives — like bad health, bad education, no water and sanitation or poor housing – and sees how they’re doing in those,” she told VOA, the official external broadcast institution of the United States federal government. “Because it’s actually not the same people who are poor in both. And so both measures together give a more balanced picture of how people are living.”
June 17, 2014
The Global MPI 2014 findings were also picked up in India; RTT News and the Hindustan Times.
Devex and The Practitioner Hub blog both covered the launch, and Oxford University’s website ran a feature titled ‘Half of the world’s poor classed as ‘destitute’‘.
The launch was also flagged up by Andy Sumner in an article for the Global Policy Journal. Sumner, who co-directs the International Development Institute at Kings’ College London, analyses expected revisions in income poverty estimates and suggests more attention should be given to multidimensional poverty data in the article, titled ‘Did Global Poverty just fall a lot, quite a bit or not at all?’.
Sabina Alkire delivers keynote speech at ALCADECA, Peru
May 14-16, 2014
OPHI’s Director Sabina Alkire delivered the keynote speech at the closing plenary of the Fifth Conference of the Latin American and Caribbean Association for Human Development and the Capabilities Approach (ALCADECA), held in Lima, Peru.
The conference, titled ‘Ethics, Agency and Human Development’, focused on the agency effectively exercised by citizens in decades of substantial economic growth, social policy expansion and diversification of government styles in Latin American and the Caribbean. It was attended by academics, researchers, policymakers and practitioners working in different arenas.
The conference closed an intensive two-week trip around the Americas by Alkire and other members of the OPHI team. Highlights of the trip included: presentations at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) in New York; a lecture at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City; and a lecture at the Universidad de la Republica in Montevideo, Uruguay.
May 20, 2014
Punto Edu, the newspaper of the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP), published an interview with Alkire which can be read here.
May 26, 2014
Alkire was also interviewed by the magazine La Mula on economic growth and poverty measurement, for a piece that can be read here.
Article by Jean Drèze highlights the usefulness of the Global MPI
May 10, 2014
The Hindu published an opinion piece by the economist Jean Drèze in which he highlights the usefulness of the MPI.
The article assesses the development achievements of the state of Gujarat in India, Drèze highlights Gujarat’s ranking on the Global MPI, noting that: ‘In the latest MPI ranking of Indian States, by Sabina Alkire and her colleagues at Oxford University, Gujarat comes 9th (again) among 20 major Indian States’.
Drèze writes that the Global MPI is a useful summary index for a comparison of poverty:
‘Briefly, the idea is that poverty manifests itself in different kinds of deprivation — lack of food, shelter, sanitation, schooling, health care, and so on. Starting with a list of basic deprivations, a household is considered “poor” if it has more than a given proportion (say one third) of these deprivations.’
Pakistan signs agreement to develop a national Multidimensional Poverty Index, Dawn reports
April 18, 2014
Dawn newspaper reported on Pakistan and OPHI's agreement to develop a national MPI for Pakistan.
The signing marked the beginning of the process of regularly calculating a new poverty index for Pakistan, based on the Alkire Foster method developed at OPHI.
At the signing, Pakistan’s Minister for Planning, Development and Reform Ahsan Iqbal (pictured above) said:
“The traditional one-dimensional indices cannot reflect the true poverty levels in Pakistan. The MPI is more comprehensive, integrated and holistic as it covers education, health and living standards. This partnership between the Government, UNDP and University of Oxford will help us understand, and better address issues related to poverty in Pakistan.”
Dawn reported that a comprehensive national report on multidimensional poverty at the district and provincial level was to be prepared using Pakistan Social & Living Standard Measurement (PSLM) survey data for the last four to five years. This would enable policymakers to ‘develop robust revenue-sharing formulas for the National Finance Commission and provincial NFC awards for allocation of resources to provinces and districts’.
Marc-André Franche, UNDP Country Director in Pakistan, said: “The MPI is crucial for policymaking and improving the targeting of social policy. It is vital to develop a robust revenue formula, improve policy design and monitor effectiveness of policy over time. Each country needs to choose dimensions that are most important for measuring poverty. In Pakistan, this is the first step for measuring the multidimensional poverty both at the federal and provincial levels and UNDP is extremely pleased to be part of this process.”
The signing followed a 10-day training course on the AF method at the Pakistan Planning and Management Institute in Islamabad, which was run by OPHI’s Director Sabina Alkire with researchers Adriana Conconi and Moizza Sarwar.
In addition to the report in the Dawn newspaper, the signing was covered by The News, The Hindu, The Express Tribune, The Nation, Pakistan Today and the Business Recorder.
OPHI Director discusses multidimensional poverty on Voice of Russia
January 13, 2014
OPHI’s Director Sabina Alkire gave an interview to the Voice of Russia radio station on 13 January 2014, in which she discussed multidimensional poverty and how it is changing over time.
In the interview, Alkire explains how the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) is constructed and what it can tell us. She also discussed findings from OPHI studies, including on where the world’s multidimensional poor live, and on changes in multidimensional poverty over time.
Voice of Russia is the Russian government’s international radio broadcasting service, and broadcasts globally to an audience of around 109 million.
2013
OPHI Director discusses Bhutan’s new poverty measure in Kuensel article
December 31, 2013
Sabina Alkire contributed to an article about the launch of a national Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) for Bhutan.
The article, published in Kuensel, was titled ‘New Oxford methodology to study poverty’, described how the MPI will take into account a broader range of factors than poverty measures previously used in Bhutan. For example, the new measure includes indicators on cooking fuel, which has implications for respiratory health and education.
“The new methodology will be more comprehensive and precise,” Alkire told Kuensel, going on to explain that: “Each indicator has a certain weight. To reach the minimum poverty line, the household must perform well in at least nine indicators.”
CNN mentions OPHI’s work in stories of note in 2013
In a special news piece over Christmas, CNN reported on four stories of note from 2013, including OPHI’s analysis of the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) 2013.
The article noted that ‘a study from Oxford University’s Poverty and Human Development Initiative [...] concluded that developing countries were enjoying remarkable success in alleviating the worst poverty.’
The piece goes on to describe how OPHI’s findings were echoed in the United Nations’ 2013 Human Development Report. The authors noted that growth and a combination of increased aid and a focus on health and education help explain the decreases observed in poverty.
The Huffington Post: to end poverty we need to understand it better
December 5, 2013
The Huffington Post has published an article by OPHI Director Sabina Alkire titled ‘To end poverty we need to understand it better‘, in which she argues for a new measure post-2015 that accurately captures poor people’s experiences of poverty.
In the article, Alkire endorsed a poverty measure – the MPI2015+ – proposed by the 25 plus countries in the Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network (MPPN) at the UN General Assembly.
‘By revealing which deprivations a poor person is experiencing simultaneously, an MPI2015+ helps break apart the silos of poverty reduction interventions and inform more cost-effective, joined-up and better targeted policies.’
The post was one of a series published by panellists taking part in Intelligence Squared’s ‘Can we really end poverty? A debate on the future of development’, held in London on 5 December 2013.
Al-Jazeera: food Security in India is not doomed after all
November 11, 2013
Al- Jazeera (English) published an article by OPHI Researcher Mihika Chatterjee on the recently approved Food Security Bill in India.
In the article, ‘Food security in India is not doomed after all’, Chatterjee explores the controversies surrounding the Public Distribution System (PDS), through which centrally-procured food commodities are distributed to households across India. Under the Bill (the Right to Food Act), provision of subsidised foodgrains for 75 percent of the rural population and 50 percent of urban dwellers will occur through the PDS.
Critics of the Bill have focused on the ‘inefficiency’ of the PDS, but in the article Chatterjee highlights the fact that most recent research shows the PDS has improved significantly in the last decade. She notes that leakages have decreased, and that the PDS plays a fundamental role in the lives of people from districts in which starvation is known to be a problem, such as Koraput.
Talk Vietnam: Multidimensional Approach Key to Sustainable Poverty Reduction
October 29, 2013
Vietnam’s Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, Pham Thi Hai Chuyen, highlighted the need to move from a unidimensional to a multidimensional approach to poverty at a forum in Hanoi.
The forum, entitled “Poverty Reduction and Way Forward”, was organised by the Ministry and the United Nations, in collaboration with the Vietnam Committee on Ethnic Minority Affairs (CEMA) and the Embassy of Ireland. The theme was ‘Working together towards a world without discrimination: Building on the experience and knowledge of people in extreme poverty’.
Talk Vietnam published an article about the forum, stating that Vietnam has reduced its poverty rate from 58.1 percent in 1993 to less than 10 percent in 2013.
According to the article, the Minister said that in order to achieve sustainable poverty reduction goals from now to 2020, Vietnam should continue to give priority resources to the poorest areas, particularly in ethnic minority-populated areas. The construction and issue of new support policies are focused on sustainable poverty reduction, she added.
Gates Foundation article on measuring women’s empowerment
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s blog Impatient Optimists published an article on the measurement of women’s empowerment, including using the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) developed by OPHI to analyse new data from India.
The WEAI was developed by OPHI with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and United States Agency for International Development (USAID). It aims to indicate women’s control over critical parts of their lives in the household, community and economy. A woman is empowered if ‘adequacy’ is achieved in 80% or more of the indicators.
Live Q&A for Guardian Global Development featuring Sabina Alkire
September 24, 2013
OPHI’s Director Sabina Alkire took part in a live Q&A titled ‘Can we trust the UN to end global poverty?’ on the Guardian Global Development website.
Alkire joined a panel of experts to discuss the intricacies of the UN general assembly, the MDGs and the post-2015 process. Key messages to emerge were that the UN alone cannot eradicate poverty and more national responsibility was needed in meeting the MDG goals. The role of the UN in the discussion emerged as one to inspire key stakeholders from multiple sectors. Additionally panelists and questioners unanimously supported a rights-based approach towards development goals.
The panel also included Tony German, executive director of Development Initiatives, which recently carried out analysis on how much it will cost to eradicate poverty; Farah Mihlar, South Asia expert for Minority Rights Group, who recently interviewed minority and indigenous activists to get their perspectives on the post-2015 process; and Liz Ford, deputy editor of the Guardian’s Global Development site, who reported from the 68th UN General Assembly.
Outreach magazine: Alkire article on Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network
An article by OPHI Director Sabina Alkire was published in Outreach, a magazine produced by the Stakeholder Forum at international meetings including this week’s UN General Assembly in New York.
In the article, Alkire echoes the UN Secretary General’s call for ‘South-South cooperation’, highlighting the work of the Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network; ‘a growing body of developing-country governments who have joined together to share their experiences of adopting multidimensional poverty measures at the national or regional level.’
The Guardian: We need new ways to measure poverty, UN meeting told
September 25, 2013
The side-event co-organised by OPHI at the UN General Assembly on 24th September 2013 is the subject of this article by the Guardian newspaper, ‘We need new ways to measure poverty, UN meeting told’.
The event included speakers from the governments of Colombia, Mexico, Chile, Philippines and Nigeria, the World Bank, UNDP, OECD and OPHI, who all called on the UN to adopt a new multidimensional poverty measure to help track progress toward the global goals identified for the post-2015 agenda.
‘The international community needs to move away from using economic benchmarks to measure development progress if it is serious about ending extreme poverty, a meeting at the UN has been told,’
Participants recommended that the UN adopt a new multidimensional poverty measure to complement the current $1.25 a day income standard.
The Economist: Growth or safety net?
September 21, 2013
This article looks at the relationship between boosting incomes and reducing poverty, and cites OPHI’s finding that Nepal had reduced multidimensional poverty fastest of 22 countries having data on multidimensional poverty over time, despite being the poorest country in South Asia. ‘…As Nepal shows, cutting poverty is not just about boosting incomes,’ the author writes.
Deprivation, the article explains, takes many forms, including the lack of schools, clean water, medicines and family planning. ‘Using her MPI measure, (OPHI’s Director Sabina Alkire) finds that about one-sixth of Vietnam’s population is poor by income, and one-sixth is “multidimensionally poor”. But they are not the same people: only about a third of the groups overlap,’ it says.
La Prensa article on El Salvador's MPI
El Salvadoran newspaper La Prensa published an article on a new poverty measure being developed in the country. The article, in Spanish, cites the Technical Secretariat of the Presidency of El Salvador (STP) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in the country as the main developers of a multidimensional methodology for poverty measurement in the country.
OPHI Director Sabina Alkire was interviewed by La Prensa in her role as adviser to the government of El Salvador on multidimensional poverty. Alkire explained the importance of adding poverty measures that go beyond income in capturing the full experience of poverty, and lauded the government’s two-year effort to collate information from poor people on the dimensions of poverty relevant to their lives.
La Prensa: Alkire Interview on multidimensional poverty in Latin America
This article, in Spanish, discusses different understandings of poverty around the world; the prospects for decreasing poverty in Nicaragua; and the World Bank’s goal to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030.
In the interview, Alkire stresses the importance of listening to poor people’s views about the dimensions that constitute their experience of poverty. She also talks about how multidimensional poverty measures provide policymakers with a way to reflect the multiple concerns of poor people in anti-poverty programmes.
The Barnacle reports on Multidimensional poverty in Barbados and the OECS.
A speech by Edwin St. Catherine, Director of Statistics at St Lucia’s Central Statistical Office, on the topic ‘Measuring Multidimensional Poverty in Barbados and the OECS (Organization of Eastern Caribbean States)’, was covered by Grenadian newspaper the Barnacle.
In the speech, given at an event hosted by UNDP in Bridgetown, St. Catherine noted that current poverty measures in the region did not adequately reflect the full experience of poverty, because monetary poverty did not always overlap with multidimensional poverty. He cited nutrition as an example and remarked that ‘You see as much as 53 per cent of children that are multidimensionally poor [in nutrition] are not poor in monetary terms.’
St. Catherine emphasised the need for a multidimensional measure that captured the impact of policies and showed policymakers the way forward for specific interventions in poverty alleviation. The Director is a graduate of OPHI’s 2013 Summer School in Multidimensional Poverty Analysis.
OpenCanada.org: Interview with Sabina Alkire
The Canadian International Council’s (CIC) digital media platform, OpenCanada.org has published an interview with OPHI Director, Sabina Alkire on the Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network (MPPN) and the MPI 2.0 (now known as the MPI 2015+).
The article describes what multidimensional measures reflect in countries such as Ethiopia and Nepal and how such measures are key to moving forward the Millennium Development Goals after 2015.
The Hindu: This bill won't eat your money
July 29, 2013
OPHI Director, Sabina Alkire, described the charge of many critics that India’s National Food Security Bill (NFSB) is excessive as ‘exceedingly strange’ in an opinion piece published by The Hindu.
Alkire argued that expenditure on providing food security would add minimally to public spending, and compared India’s fiscal priorities with those of other countries in Asia, where, she says, governments across the political spectrum invest more in social protection.
SciDevNet: Poor nations ‘can take a lead’ in post-2015 agenda
July 2, 2013
OPHI Director Sabina Alkire contributed to a feature published by SciDevNet discussing the future role of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in the post-2015 context following the release of a briefing paper by the LDC Independent Expert Group.
Alkire welcomed the findings of the report, noting that many of the poorest countries have achieved more in terms of reducing non-income poverty than their wealthier counterparts. However, she would have liked the report to go further and recognise LDC expertise on the issue of women’s empowerment and their leadership.
La Prensa covers presentation by Sabina Alkire
OPHI Director Sabina Alkire gave a presentation to the University of Central America (UCA) in Managua, Nicaragua, on multidimensional aspects of poverty, arguing for a movement beyond measuring poverty using Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and consumption alone. Her talk was covered by the Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa.
Việt Nam News: Vietnam joins Peer Network as it moves to adopt multidimensional poverty measure
Vietnam’s Vice-Minister of Labor and Social Affairs, Nguyen Trong Dam, announced that he will join the global Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network that was formally launched on 6-7 June 2013, as Vietnam moved to adopt a multidimensional framework for measuring poverty.
The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs’ decision to move to a multidimensional approach to poverty measurement was covered by the Vietnamese media, including Việt Nam News, the national English-language daily.
Launch of Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network makes the news
June 6, 2013
The launch of the Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network by President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia and high-level representatives from Mexico and around 20 other governments in Oxford on 6 June made the news in Spanish-language media around the world.
In Colombia, the event was covered by El Colombiano, El Espectador, El Heraldo, El Nuevo Herald, El País, El Tiempo, Colombia Reports and Colombia Politics. It was covered live by W Radio Colombia, and also featured on Radio Nacional de Colombia, Caracol Radio and Radio Santa Fe.
BBC Radio 4: Discussion on Global Poverty
June 1, 2013
OPHI Director Sabina Alkire took part in a discussion on global poverty on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on 1 June, arguing that over the next generation there is a possibility to lift the whole of humanity out of extreme income and multidimensional poverty.
Alkire and Jeremy Lefroy, Conservative MP and member of Trade Out of Poverty, discussed whether capitalism and free markets, rather than good governance and social programmes, were the answer to ending poverty.
Alkire noted that, research has shown that economic growth may have little or no correlation with non-income development goals on issues such as child mortality or increasing the number of children in school. ‘That’s a shocking finding, because we would assume them to walk in lockstep and they don’t,’ she said.
