Don't miss: OPHI Summer School July 2018: Applications Open! Deadline: 28 March 2018

Photo: Catherine Taylor

Global MPI winter update 2017/2018

The latest update of the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (Global MPI), released in January 2018, includes new results for Angola, Armenia, Ethiopia, Nepal and Senegal.

This is the first time Angola’s MPI has been updated since 2001. The new data shows that 48% of the population are poor, in contrast to 77% previously. Even though the figures are not directly comparable as they come from different surveys, the new numbers suggest the country has achieved a significant reduction in poverty over the last 15 years.

The MPIs are a powerful tool to measure progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, in particular the targets designed for the first goal: “End poverty in all its forms everywhere”.

Read more about these new figures here. Go directly to the Global MPI Winter 2017/2018 data here.

OPHI Summer School July 2018: Call for applications!

Photo : OPHI 2016 Beijing Summer School

Application deadline: 28 March 2018.

This year’s summer school on Multidimensional Poverty Measurement and Analysis is open for applications. It will be held on July 16-27, 2018, at the Oxford Department of International Development, in Oxford, England. This intensive Summer School will provide a thorough technical and practical introduction to multidimensional poverty measurement with a strong emphasis on the Alkire-Foster Method.

Find out more here.

Bhutan cuts poverty by roughly half in five years

In the last days of December 2017 Bhutan released an update of their national Multidimensional Poverty Index that indicated it had cut multidimensional poverty by nearly half in just five years.

“Overall, the 2017 MPI paints a picture of lightning-fast progress, with MPI reducing by far more than half from 2007 to 2017 and by roughly half since 2012,” said Mr. Chhime Tshering, Director of the National Statistics Bureau, Bhutan.

Read more here.

Fighting child poverty

A recent blog post by OPHI Research Officer Christian Oldiges explores how measuring child poverty across multiple dimensions can help governments to shape public policy that reaches those most in need.

Dr Oldiges looks at how the Alkire-Foster Method – a flexible technique for measuring poverty – can be applied to compute Child Multidimensional Poverty Indices (C-MPIs).

Read more here.

Nepal launches its
first national MPI

Nepal launched its first official national Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) in Kathmandu in December 2017.

The new index shows that Nepal has halved its official MPI between 2006 and 2014, from 0.313 to 0.127. OPHI Director Dr Sabina Alkire said the scale of national poverty reduction is “both dramatic and encouraging.”

Nepal will be able to use the national MPI to inform social policy and to monitor its effectiveness.

Read more here.

Ambassadors visit OPHI

On the 9th of February OPHI welcomed Ambassadors and representatives from Belize, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama.

The group shared the progress of multidimensional poverty initiatives in their respective countries. Panama will be the first Latin American country to develop a child MPI, and El Salvador is including violence as an indicator in their national MPI.

Events

2018

March 1-3: OPHI Workshop, Oxford
"Multidimensional Impact of Social Protection Schemes"

In the first days of March, about 30 researchers from around the globe will come together in Oxford to discuss how the Alkire-Foster Method can be used to evaluate the impact of social protection schemes, in the Multidimensional Impact Evaluation Workshop.

The event will take place at Green Templeton College on March 1-3, 2018. Participation is by invitation only, but the discussions and results will be reported to the wider development community during and after the workshop, through OPHI’s website and social media channels. The papers presented will later be published as OPHI working papers and in scientific journals.

Read more about it here, and see the workshop agenda here.

March 7: UN Side Event, New York
"Disaggregating the Multidimensional Poverty Index to Break Silos of Poverty"

On the 7th of March, 2018, the Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network (MPPN) will host a side event at the 49th session of the United Nations Statistical Commission at the UN Headquarters in New York. The theme of this side event will be: "Disaggregating the Multidimensional Poverty Index to Break Silos of Poverty". It will explore how the MPI can be used to show the disaggregated information (by rural/urban areas, sub-national regions, age groups, gender etc.) necessary to track progress in the Sustainable Development Goals and encourage policies that leave no one behind.

As in previous years, this side event will provide an opportunity for leading statisticians and MPPN members at the forefront of innovations in poverty measurement to discuss and share their experiences using multidimensional poverty measures. Find out more here.

March 19: Talk by Dr. Abdul Alim (UNICEF Regional Advisor for Social Policy), Oxford
"Child Poverty, Public Expenditure, and Social Policy in South Asia"

Dr. Abdul Alim, UNICEF Regional Advisor for Social Policy will be delivering a talk about Child Poverty, Public Expenditure, and Social Policy in South Asia, on the 19th of March 2018, 1:00–2:00 PM. This will take place at Queen Elizabeth House, 3 Mansfield Road, Seminar Room 2, Oxford, and is open to all.

Publications

Working Paper No: 114
Multidimensional Inequality and Human Development
Authors: Suman Seth and Maria Emma Santos

Working Paper No: 113
Collective Choice and Social Welfare by Amartya Sen: A Review Essay with Reference to Development in Peru
Authors: Séverine Deneulin and Jhonatan Clausen

Research in Progress: 50a
Incorporating environmental and natural resources within analyses of multidimensional poverty
Authors: Géraldine Thiry, Sabina Alkire and Judith Schleicher

Announcements

Ricardo Nogales has joined OPHI as Research Officer.
Rebeca Kritsch has joined OPHI as Media and Communications Manager.

View previous editions of the OPHI e-update here.

Copyright © 2018 Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), All rights reserved.

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