UN High Level Political Forum debates eradicating poverty in all its forms

Panama launches its MPI

On 26 June, Panama’s government published the results of the country’s first Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), thereby reaffirming the Administration’s commitment to tackle poverty, eradicate extreme poverty (categorised by income) and reduce the levels of multidimensional poverty before the Sustainable Development Objectives deadline in 2030. With the aim of adding sustainability to the MPI, the President signed an Executive Decree making the MPI the official means of implementing multidimensional poverty measurement, as a complement to poverty measurement by income.

The Panamanian MPI consists of seventeen indicators spread over five dimensions: education; employment; environment, neighbourhood and sanitation; housing, basic services and internet access; and health. A household is considered to be in multidimensional poverty if it is deprived in five or more of the indicators.

The Dominican Republic 

The Government of the Dominican Republic launched its MPI on June 27, 2017 in an official ceremony led by Vice President Margarita Cedeño Fernández and attended by a number of Government Ministers, international agencies including UNDP and Sabina Alkire of OPHI.

The Dominican Republic MPI has 5 dimensions and 24 indicators. Among them are the digital gap, discrimination and participation — all highly innovative.

UNDP representative Lorenzo Jiménez de Luis said, “the Sustainable Development Agenda 2030 recognises that addressing … development as a multi-dimensional process is indispensable for sustainably overcoming …  poverty. That is why the generation of multidimensional poverty indices, such as the one that the Dominican Republic launches today, is becoming increasingly relevant for the design of comprehensive interventions that respond to the different spheres of human development.”

Costa Rica launches the business tool - the bMPI

Costa Rica is the first country in the world to use the MPI in the private sector. The Business MPI was developed by Horizonte Positivo, a private sector association, in partnership with OPHI. The bMPI uses the same indicators as the National Cost Rican MPI, adopted by the Costa Rican Government in 2015. It is designed to identify multidimensionally poor employees at all levels of the company and their families.

Information collected through the bMPI is then used by companies to find solutions to that poverty either through corporate means or through public-private partnerships.

'Dimensions' – Voices of Experience 

Our bimonthly magazine Dimensions documents how multidimensional poverty indices can be a tool for supporting action as it allows governments and other actors to monitor overlapping deprivations over time and to assign resources to those most in need. This is already happening in many countries. In the current issue we speak with Ana Helena Chacon, Vice President of Costa Rica, about collaborating with the private sector in efforts to eradicate poverty.

Michelle Muscett, Vice Minister of Social Development of Panama, inaugurates a new column offering first-hand accounts of how multidimensional measures are implemented.

Dimensions also reports on a workshop for the media on MPI, and complements our data section with stories of people living in poverty in order to learn about the lives of those most in need.
 

OPHI's Summer School in Marrakesh 

OPHI ran its Summer School from 3-15 July 2017 in Marrakesh, Morocco, with a record number of participants – 80 from 36 countries. The school was co-organised by the Moroccan High Commission of Planning (HCP). The opening address by Minister Ahmed Lahlimi Alami was followed by a lecture given by Khalid Soudi, HCP's Director of the Observatory of Population Living Conditions. The intensive sessions provided a thorough technical and practical introduction to multidimensional poverty measurement with a strong emphasis in the Alkire-Foster method.