This paper introduces a trial Moderate Multidimensional Poverty Index (MMPI) that provides a meaningful superset of existing global multidimensional poverty indices. Eradicating poverty in all its forms everywhere requires indicators that measure sustainable pathways out of poverty, not only the absence of extreme deprivation. The MMPI increases the deprivation cutoff of nine of the ten indicators of the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (gMPI) to reflect moderate rather than acute levels of multidimensional poverty, in line with the ambitions outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The MMPI is constructed as a superset to the global MPI maintaining the three dimensions of health, education and living standards, but adjusting nine of the indicators to reflect a meaningful change in the level of ambition. The trial MMPI is data-constrained, but provides a methodology and discusses potential indicators for an MMPI that would: i) be globally comparable across countries at all income levels, ii) align the indicators with the higher standards for development as defined in the Agenda 2030, and iii) allow us to study some aspects of intrahousehold deprivation. The trial MMPI is illustrated empirically using nationally representative household surveys from Thailand, Iraq, Tanzania, Serbia, Guatemala, and Bangladesh. The empirical results in the six countries show the added value of having three layered measures of destitution, acute poverty, and moderate poverty. The MMPI aligns reasonably well with the established monetary poverty levels in lower middle-income countries ($3.2 / day) and in upper middle-income countries ($5.5/day), yet with some informative differences. The results demonstrate that the MMPI is feasible, has desirable properties as a global poverty index, and allows to unearth thus far hidden aspects in poverty measurement, such as intrahousehold deprivations in education. Still, challenges remain in terms of data availability for certain indicators and a study across additional countries is required before an MMPI structure can be finalized.
Citation: Alkire, S., Kovesdi, F., Scheja, E. and Vollmer, F. (2020). ‘Moderate Multidimensional Poverty Index: Paving the way out of poverty’, OPHI Research in Progress 59a, Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), University of Oxford.
Women play a critical and potentially transformative role in agricultural growth in developing countries, but they face persistent obstacles and economic constraints limiting further inclusion in agriculture.
The WEAI measures the empowerment, agency, and inclusion of women in the agriculture sector in an effort to identify ways to overcome those obstacles and constraints. The Index is a significant innovation in its field and aims to increase understanding of the connections between women’s empowerment, food security, and agricultural growth.
The WEAI is a composite measurement tool that indicates women’s control over critical parts of their lives in the household, community, and economy. It allows us to identify women who are disempowered and understand how to increase autonomy and decision-making in key domains. It is also a useful tool for tracking progress toward gender equality, which is one of the Millennium Development Goals.
OPHI collaborated with USAID and the IFPRI to develop the innovative index.
Download the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index 2012 brochure.
The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) is a ground-breaking tool to measure the empowerment, agency and inclusion of women in the agriculture sector.
Launched in March 2012 by OPHI with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the WEAI tracks women’s engagement in agriculture in five areas: production, resources, income, leadership, and time use. Unlike any other tool, it also measures women’s empowerment relative to men within their households, providing a more robust understanding of gender dynamics within households and communities.
Organised by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), University of Oxford, was held at Sup de Co Marrakech, in Marrakesh, Morocco, 3-15 July 2017.
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:
This summer school was co-organised in partnership with the Morocco High Commission for Planning (HCP) as part of pre-conference activities of the ISI World Statistics Congress 2017 held in Marrakech (Morocco) from 16 to 21 July 2017. The summer school applicants were highly encouraged to also apply and participate in the congress. Further information can be found on the conference website.
The summer school was led by OPHI Director Sabina Alkire and the OPHI team including Adriana Conconi, James Foster, John Hammock, Bouba Housseini, Christoph Jindra, Usha Kanagaratnam, Bilal Malaeb, Christian Oldiges, Monica Pinilla, Gisela Robles Aguilar and Nicolai Suppa.
Course Format:
The summer school consisted of 10.5 days of instruction and working group sessions, taught in English (there is potential but not confirmed translation into French). Each participant needed to bring a laptop with Stata to do the problem sets. Throughout the summer school, participants were actively involved in discussions and working through problem sets, and were invited to present their research work and share their experiences.
Dates and Location:
The course ran from Monday 3 July 2017 to Friday 14 July 2017 with a final exam on Saturday 15 July 2017 (non-compulsory). The summer school was held at Sup de Co Marrakech, in Marrakesh, Morocco.
Costs:
Course Application Information
| Audience | The summer school is addressed to those who are working on, or actively interested in gaining skills in, multidimensional poverty measurement, particularly professional staff of national offices of statistics and in government ministries that deal with poverty reduction, professionals from international development institutions, academics, and postgraduate students. Applicants who are currently pursuing work on measurement are also welcome. Other applicants having a demonstrated research interest in empirical analysis in these topics will be considered on the basis of their experience and space availability. |
| Pre-requisites | ·A demonstrable knowledge of Stata is an essential pre-requisite for attending the course. Every attendant to the summer school will need to have Stata 10 or higher installed in his/her laptop. The software will not be provided by the summer school.·A strong knowledge in quantitative methods (e.g. econometrics, statistics, etc.) and a strong interest in poverty measurement and analysis are highly desirable. |
| Financial Support | Limited financial support is available. Competition for financial support will be very strong; however, well qualified and committed applicants with financial need are strongly encouraged to apply. Successful applicants are also highly encouraged to seek support from their local governments and institutions. We would be happy to provide support letters for these funding applications to accepted candidates. |
| Application Form | The application deadline for the 2017 Summer School has passed. Please contact us if you have any questions. |
| Questions? | Please write to Rachel Pearson, ophi-summerschool@qeh.ox.ac.uk |
Organised by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), University of Oxford, was held at Oxford Department of International Development, in Oxford, England, 16-27 July 2018.
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. After completing the course, students obtained 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 were 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:
The summer school was led by OPHI Director Sabina Alkire and the OPHI team, including Fedora Carbajal, Mihika Chatterjee, Adriana Conconi, James Foster, Usha Kanagaratnam, Rebeca Kritsch, Bilal Malaeb, Corinne Mitchell, Juliana Milovich, Ricardo Nogales, Christian Oldiges, Monica Pinilla, Nicolai Suppa and Ana Vaz.
27 August 2019 – The 2019 cohort of the OPHI Summer School has completed an intensive two-week training in multidimensional poverty measurement.
The OPHI Summer School is an annual course led by OPHI Director Sabina Alkire and the OPHI team that provides a thorough technical and practical introduction to multidimensional poverty measurement with a strong emphasis on the Alkire-Foster method.
Held in different countries each year, the 2019 Summer School was hosted by CONEVAL at their headquarters in Mexico City. As the first country to develop an official national measure of multidimensional poverty based on the Alkire-Foster method, CONEVAL was a motivating setting for nearly 60 participants representing 23 countries from around the world to come together to develop their skills and gain inspiration. Attendees represented a cross section of the development sector, ranging from professional staff from national offices of statistics and government ministries to researchers and students from academia and international agencies.
During the course, special speakers included: Executive Secretary of CONEVAL, Dr José Nabor Cruz Marcelo; Professor James Foster, the Oliver T Carr Jr Professor of International Affairs at the George Washington University; and Luis Felipe López-Calva, UN Development Programme (UNDP) Assistant Administrator and Regional Director for Latin American and the Caribbean.
Taking participants through Amartya Sen’s capability approach and empirical examples of national and global multidimensional poverty indices were the OPHI team, which included OPHI Director Sabina Alkire, Adriana Conconi, Usha Kanagaratnam, Corinne Mitchell, Ricardo Nogales, Christian Oldiges, Monica Pinilla-Roncancio, and Frank Vollmer. The OPHI team also covered the conceptual and empirical motivation for measuring multidimensional poverty, as well as estimation, dimensional breakdown, disaggregation by population subgroup, standard errors and statistical inference, robustness, communications and policy applications. Supporting the course were Freya Paulucci-Couldrick, Émeline Marcelin and Johanna Andrango.
Following presentations and an exam, participants demonstrated that they had developed the skills required to construct and analyse a multidimensional poverty measure using the Alkire-Foster method, and to describe its policy relevance.
For those interested in applying next year, details will be advertised in the spring.
For those interested in applying next year, details will be advertised in the spring.
Pictures of the sessions are available here and here.
Video summary of the opening session here. Full video here.
Introduction to the Alkire-Foster method by Professor James Foster and Dr Christian Oldiges here.
#OPHISS19
OPHI Briefing 53a (PDF, 12 pages)
Multidimensional poverty data and measurement are key allies in confronting the threat posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Formulating an effective response to this global crisis requires an understanding of the overlapping deprivations faced by people around the world, deprivations that can result in increased vulnerability to COVID-19. The global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) provides clear, immediate evidence of these interlinked deprivations, making interventions more effective, high impact, and durable.
This briefing uses data from the global MPI database for 2020 and covers 103 countries and 5.8 billion people to show at a glance critical facts for the COVID-19 response.
Authors: Sabina Alkire, Jakob Dirksen, Ricardo Nogales and Christian Oldiges
Year: 2020
Citation: Alkire, S., Dirksen, J., Nogales, R. and Oldiges, C. (2020). ‘Multidimensional poverty and COVID-19 risk factors: A rapid overview of interlinked deprivations across 5.8 billion people’, OPHI Briefing 53a, Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), University of Oxford.
OPHI Briefing 54a (PDF, 16 pages)
This Briefing presents a 2020 global MPI update to the 2019 global MPI analyses and results presented in: OPHI Briefing 54, ‘Multidimensional Poverty and Vulnerability to COVID-19: A Rapid Overview of Disaggregated and Interlinked Vulnerabilities in Sub-Saharan Africa’, OPHI, 2020.
Included are updated data and results for nine countries, which cover over 35% of both the population and poor persons in the region.
The briefing provides evidence on the situation across 479 subnational regions and 40 countries of sub-Saharan Africa. It maps some simultaneous deprivations that people are already facing so that policy actors can adjust their COVID-19 responses based on differing levels of vulnerability. Maps on the OPHI website cover each of the 479 regions in greater depth.
Authors: Sabina Alkire, Jakob Dirksen, Ricardo Nogales and Christian Oldiges
Year: 2020
Citation: Alkire, S., Dirksen, J., Nogales, R. and Oldiges, C. (2020). ‘Multidimensional poverty and vulnerability to COVID-19: A rapid overview of disaggregated and interlinked vulnerabilities in Sub-Saharan Africa’, OPHI Briefing 54a, Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, University of Oxford.
OPHI Briefing 56 (PDF, 20 pages)
This briefing synthesises information from the 2020 global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) with a focus on Africa. It provides multidimensional poverty data for 48 African countries, covering 1.25 billion people living on the continent using household surveys fielded between 2010 and 2019. In addition, the 2020 global MPI also includes trend data for 37 African countries enabling a focus on how poverty is changing on the African continent.
Authors: Ross Jennings and Christian Oldiges
Year: 2020
Citation: Jennings, R. and Oldiges, C. (2020). ‘Understanding Poverty in Africa’, OPHI Briefing 56. Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, University of Oxford.
Oxford-based theatre company Justice in Motion have produced a short play on behalf of OPHI, exploring the multidimensional layers of poverty. Watch a video of the performance below.
A high resolution version of this video is available to watch on YouTube.
Find out more about multidimensional poverty.
