OPHI Summer School 2019

Organised by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative(OPHI), University of Oxford, the Summer School was held with the support of CONEVAL at their headquarters in Mexico City, Mexico, 12^th – 24^th August 2019. The purpose of this intensive Summer School was to provide a thorough technical and practical introduction to multidimensional poverty measurement with a strong emphasis on the Alkire-Foster method. Upon completing the course, students gained the skills required to construct and analyse an official national multidimensional poverty measure and to describe its policy relevance. 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 was presented, as well as the full suite of measurement tools including estimation, dimensional breakdown, disaggregation by population subgroup, standard errors and statistical inference, robustness, communications, policy applications, and so on. 

The following topics were 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.

The Summer School was led by OPHI Director Sabina Alkire and the OPHI team, including Adriana Conconi, Usha Kanagaratnam,  Corinne Mitchell, Ricardo Nogales, Christian Oldiges, and Monica Pinilla 

Course Format: The Summer School consists of 10.5 days 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 are actively involved in discussions and working through problem sets. The main course is appropriate for academics, staff of national statistical offices, international agencies, and others focused on measurement. Dates and Location: The course ran from Monday 12^th August 2019 to Friday 23^rd August 2019 with a final exam on Saturday 24^th August 2019 (non-compulsory). The Summer School was held at: CONEVAL, Av. Insurgentes Sur # 810, Colonia del Valle, Benito Juárez, CP 03100, Mexico City, Mexico. See www.coneval.org.mx  

Costs: The course fee was 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 needed 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: applications are now closed.