The video of the event is available here:
President of Colombia Juan Manuel Santos:
President of Mexico Enrique Peña Nieto:
Photo Gallery
Important Information
Date: 19 September 2017
Time: 11am – 1pm (Local time)
Venue: Conference Room 2, United Nations Building
Hashtag: #UNGA #MPI4SDGs
UNGA Website: http://www.un.org/en/ga/
Concept Note
Agenda
Press Release
Video
Photos
Attila Hancioglu, Global MICS Coordinator, UNICEF
“Recently, of course, as a result of all our efforts, we were pleased to see that multidimensional poverty has taken its deserved place in the SDG framework.” Hancioglu provided the welcome news that due to the mainstreaming of MPI it would be included as a standard part of MICS survey reports together with child poverty indicators.
“Our work is going to intensify in general. We are very pleased to have seen specifically on MPI a number of child-specific MPIs in a number of countries, including Malaysia, Vietnam, El Salvador, and Rwanda. And including the report, which was released last year, for Bhutan on a child-specific MPI”.
Xavier Mancero – Senior Statistician, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean
Mancero presented a new project they have jointly with UNESCWA and other UN agencies and the Secretariat, in which one component will address multidimensional poverty and proposing new questions to address common challenges in household data sources for MPIs. He observed “what we see is we already have the support to build a National MPI, but then we are very limited usually by the data we have in the household surveys. So, we have indicators of access and not quality… Or there are dimensions of poverty that are not considered in these surveys.” The fundamental question they face is this: “Now that we have the multidimensional poverty index, how do we measure it better? How do we measure the dimensions that are lacking or come closer to what we want to know about the poor population?”
— — — — — — — —
About National and Global MPIs:
Governments such as Mexico, Colombia, Bhutan, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Ecuador, Honduras, Pakistan and Armenia use official multidimensional poverty indices (MPIs) as an official statistic of poverty. Each national MPI is tailor-made to the national context. For example, its design may reflect the constitution, or national development plan, or a participatory exploration of what poverty means. The national MPI may be computed using the same survey as income poverty metrics, or a different survey. It may be updated annually or every 2 years. Each national MPI is an official poverty statistic, but an effort is made so that it is used to inform and energise policy.
Yet not all governments have national MPIs. Even when they do, national MPIs cannot be compared. So there is a value-added to having a comparable global MPI across developing countries and/or universally, with extensive and disaggregated information on the composition of poverty for different groups. A global MPI for developing countries has been estimated by OPHI and the UNDP’s Human Development Report Office, and disaggregated for 1,300 subnational regions, as well as by variables like age and rural-urban areas. The global MPI might be particularly useful for SDG target 1.2 of halving multidimensional poverty, and potentially by countries without tailor-made National MPIs at the present time.
About the Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network (MPPN):
This event was co-hosted by the Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network (MPPN), a group of senior representatives from over 50 governments and international institutions, and its Secretariat, OPHI.
The Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network was launched in June 2013 at a distinguished event at the University of Oxford, at which President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia and Professor Amartya Sen gave keynote addresses. The network was established in response to demand for information on implementing multidimensional measures, and for technical and institutional support. The Network Steering Committee includes Ministers and senior government officials from China, South Africa, Mexico, and Colombia as well as from OPHI.
In a series of submitted statements from other actors, other points emerged about the use of multidimensional poverty measures. Dr. Ana Revenga of the World Bank detailed the how the forthcoming Atkinson Commission Report on Global Poverty will advocate complementary uses of monetary and multidimensional measures of poverty. Dr. Savas Alpay of the Islamic Development Bank shared findings from a recent report on multidimensional poverty in IDB member countries in Africa. Dr. Noel Gonzalez Segura of the Mexican Agency for International Cooperation (AMEXCID) invited participants to the upcoming MPPN meeting in Mexico in November 7-9, 2016. Dr. Attila Hancioglu of UNICEF elaborated on UNICEF’s use of multidimensional measures for child poverty. Ayodele Odusola of UNDP explored the history of incorporating multidimensional measures into policymaking and how leaders in this regard have served as examples to others.
The meeting was remarkable for the diversity of participants and the energy, ideas, and concrete examples that they brought to the discussion. It clearly demonstrated the vitality of the movement for multidimensional poverty reduction and the necessity of considering the multiple dimensions of poverty so that no one is left behind.
Highlights from the discussion included:
H.E. Jeff Radebe, Minister in the Presidency of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, South Africa
“Let us remind ourselves – that none other than the late former South African icon and former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, uttered these words: ‘As long as poverty, injustice and gross inequality persist in this world, none of us can truly rest!’… This moment, now, calls for a greater sense of urgency, collaboration and coordination to connect the dots more presciently and to work even more assiduously… We must do so with restless commitment and the conviction that poverty can be relegated to the dustbin of history.”
“South Africa seeks to ensure that its MPI reflects the voices and values of poor people and their communities. Statistics SA recently undertook an innovative community survey asking people what dimensions matter most to them. This information is being used in the next generation of poverty assessments.”
H.E. Ana García Hernández, First Lady of Honduras, on behalf of H.E. Juan Orlando Hernández, President of Honduras
“Last month we launched our first Multidimensional Poverty Index and report in Honduras, as part of our international commitment to advance the completion of the 2030 Development Agenda of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.”
“The MPI is a robust methodological tool that not only complements monetary poverty measures, but also allows us to identify the magnitude and complexities of poverty and identify public policies to provide a better life for all Hondurans.”
“This new MPI is like going to the doctor … The MPI … allows us to pinpoint the condition from which we suffer so that we can better understand poverty and have better public policy that will be more successful in bringing thousands and thousands of families in our country out of poverty.”
“We have been leaders in the implementation of the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) because we understand that poverty is an issue that goes beyond simple income and the index contributes to our aim of achieving a more just and equitable society. It has also allowed us to better organize our public policy and prioritize the most vulnerable.”
“The challenge before us to build a stable and lasting peace goes hand in hand with the goal of overcoming poverty and recommitting to building a new country with a better future for our children, who no longer will be part of the conflict, but instead will be in their schools, in their homes.”
“Last October, we launched an official national multidimensional poverty index, or ‘MPI’. Our MPI is reported alongside our monetary poverty metric and makes visible the many men, women, and children who experience direct deprivations in aspects of life that public policy can address. So there are two public benefits to measuring multidimensional poverty. First, people whose conditions were overlooked by a monetary poverty measure feel that now we recognize and understand their situation. Second, reducing multidimensional poverty is not unpredictable. The MPI changes as a result of concerted action of public policy, corporate social responsibility, and NGO programming.”
“Costa Rica has innovated in using the MPI for resource allocation. This year I signed a Presidential decree requiring the MPI to be used to set the budget for poverty programs. In this way the MPI is being used as a management tool, a way to streamline and improve the governance of poverty programs in the country.”
H.E. Marie-Louise Potter, Ambassador to the UN, on behalf of H.E. Joel Morgan, Foreign Minister of Seychelles
“As [a high income country and] a Small Island Developing State, we are fully aware of our vulnerabilities and our strengths. We acknowledge that pockets of poverty exist in our society and we need to explore its many facets so that we can target interventions accordingly.”
“We are confident that designing and using a national MPI will contribute greatly to the implementation of better public policies, which will improve the lives of the most vulnerable people around the globe.”
H.E. Shamsul Alam, Member (Senior Secretary) of the General Economics Division, Planning Commission of Banglandesh
“Income poverty is not enough to see poverty… We are certainly quite pleased with the MPI method because it counts other aspects of deprivations of human beings.”
“We are committed, we are progressing… there are limitations of data and political commitment. But gradually we will switch over into an MPI method.”
H.E. Ernesto M. Pernia, Secretary of the National Economic Development Authority of the Philippines
“Over the past four years, we have strongly supported the push for the inclusion of the multidimensional poverty measures as an important and essential part of the performance indicators for the post-2015 development agenda.”
“In 2014, the midterm update of the Philippine Development Plan 2011-2016 explicitly included the reduction of multidimensional poverty into the desired outcomes of our development agenda. The MPI was also included as an official indicator of poverty. This paved the way for accelerated poverty reduction initiatives… Under the new government of President Rodrigo Duterte, addressing multidimensional poverty to attain poverty- and inequality-reducing economic growth will further be integrated into the Philippines Development Plan, 2017 to 2022.”
“To monitor this and to complement the poverty incidence metric which is based on income, the Philippine Statistics Authority is currently developing an official MPI for the Philippines. This is part of the deliverables under the Philippine Statistical Development Plan 2011-2017 and is expected to be released in 2018.”
“Inclusive growth can be attained by improving human capital, access to services and facilities, and asset buildup among the poor in a multidimensional context.”
H.E. Horacio Sevilla, Ambassador to the UN, on behalf of H.E. Gabriela Rosero, Minister of Social Development of Ecuador
“The measurement of poverty based solely on monetary income provides an incomplete assessment of standard of living and don’t directly capture access to public goods that are not acquired with income… We believe that this [multidimensional] index is an ideal tool for facing the challenge of poverty in all its many facets.”
H.E. Anna Mwasha, Director of the Poverty Eradication Department of Tanzania
“The SDGs Goal 1 is to end poverty in all its forms everywhere. Poverty is a result of many combined things (multiple-dimensions). If we want to fairly track progress in Goal 1, key poverty related indicators in goals 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 should be well addressed in policies. Also, MPI will be needed in assessing SDG 1.”
“The Government of Tanzania recognises the importance of the MPI. This indicator among others has been included as targets in the Five Years Development Plan II (2016/17 – 2020/21). The FYDP II is a sound policy framework which has incorporated the SDGs, and informs sectors’ strategic plans. The main focus of this National Plan is industrialization and human development. The MPI is among the indicators to track progress on poverty.”
“We hope to strengthen our capacity for data collection, analysis, and dissemination by raising awareness among the public and policymakers to develop an official MPI to support evidence-based planning at all levels.”
Dr. Ana Revenga, Senior Director of The World bank’s Poverty and Equity Global Practice
“The multidimensional poverty agenda is part of a broader conversation we are leading at the Bank on finding ever better ways of defining and measuring poverty. This is the mandate we entrusted to the Global Poverty Commission, led by Sir Tony Atkinson and including some of the most distinguished names in the study of poverty.”
“I do not want to anticipate the [Atkinson] Report, which is an extremely comprehensive and excellent piece, but I do want to highlight that it clearly recommends that global monetary poverty measures be accompanied by a set of Complementary Indicators, which should include a dashboard of non-monetary indicators and a multidimensional poverty indicator based on the counting approach. We are likely to see an increased involvement of the Bank in its global monitoring on multidimensional poverty measures as a complement to monetary measures, so as to allow for richer and more policy relevant discussions on poverty and deprivation.”
Dr. Savas Alpay, Chief Economist of the Islamic Development Bank
“The Islamic Development Bank group and OPHI have expanded their partnership in the area of multidimensional poverty since the launch of the Sustainable Development Goals.”
“This report [by the Islamic Development Bank with OPHI support] has provided an overview of multidimensional poverty levels and trends in our member countries in sub-Saharan Africa by using the most recent estimations and analysis of the global multidimensional poverty index, and this report will be very useful for us to enhance our interventions on poverty alleviation, especially in these member countries”
“Our analysis [from a recent report on multidimensional poverty in sub-Saharan African member countries] shatters any depiction of African poverty as being uniform.”
“It is best to tackle multidimensional poverty in a coordinated way with a strategy that encompasses all these dimensions and that also unites the various ministries of government behind an integrated plan of action.”
Dr. Noel Gonzalez Segura, General Director at the Mexican Agency for International Cooperation and Development (AMEXCID)
“Mexico is deeply committed to multidimensional poverty… From the point of view of our Development Agency for Cooperation and Development (AMEXID) this is one of the tools that we are promoting as a success story…to share our experience. Mexico will be hosting the fourth meeting of the Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network to take place 7-9 November this year…(Among other topics) we will review the relationship of multidimensional poverty with the metrics of the SDGs.
Dr. Attila Hancioglu, Acting Chief of UNICEF’s Data & Analytics Section
“For more than a decade now, UNICEF has been committed to capturing child poverty in all its dimensions.”
“Multidimensional poverty measures will now be systematically featuring in our global databases as part of our SDG work, as well as becoming an integral part of our reporting when it comes to the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys, which will support countries as a household survey program.”
Dr. Ayodele Odusola, Chief Economist at UNDP’s Regional Bureau for Africa
“The Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network (MPPN) approach is creating a formidable platform for multi-dimensional poverty measurement at the national level, using a multi-partnership approach… I encourage member states that are yet to join the MPPN to do so.”
“When an MPI is used as a policy lens for the formulation and implementation of development plans and strategy, more people benefit from development outcomes. Therefore, a commitment to an MPI is a commitment to ‘leaving no one behind by 2030’.”
Sir Louis Straker, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, on behalf of H.E. Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
“My Government has a far more ambitious goal: the elimination of hunger within five years. The government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines established a parliamentary front against hunger and undernourishment in order to strengthen political commitment and action.”
“The Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines recognizes the cyclical link between poverty, hunger, and education.”
The eminent speakers addressing a full room included:
Further interventions from the floor were contributed by:
Watch the video of the event here.
Speeches from the event:
Minister Jeff Radebe of South Africa
President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia (through Director of the Department of Social Prosperity Tatyana Orozco de la Cruz)
President Luis Guillermo Solís of Costa Rica (through Ambassador to the UN Juan Carlos Mendoza)
Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia of the Philippines
Dr. Ana Revenga of the World Bank
Dr. Ayodele Odusola of UNDP
Related documents:
Concept note
Video
Agenda
On 7 March, 2016, OPHI and the Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network (MPPN) hosted a Side Event at the 47th session of the United Nations Statistical Commission in New York. The Commission is the key UN statistical entity, with participation from national and international statistical leaders from across the world. The very first agenda item at this session is the indicator framework to be used for measuring progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). For Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and the MPPN, this Side Event was a good opportunity to share countries’ experiences with multidimensional poverty measurement.
The side event brought together an overflowing room of participants, among them many leading statisticians at the forefront of innovations in poverty measurement, to discuss and share experiences with using multidimensional poverty measures for analysing poverty and as a governance tool for targeting, monitoring, and coordination of poverty reduction programmes.
Overall, the participants strongly highlighted the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) as a tool that can rigorously measure poverty in all its dimensions and fulfil SDG indicator 1.2.2.
The side event was chaired by Pali Lehohla, Statistician-General for South Africa and a Steering Committee member of the MPPN. Directors of statistics from Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Senegal, South Africa, and Tunisia, as well as the Director of OPHI presented their ongoing work to measure and reduce multidimensional poverty. Comments from the floor were contributed by directors of statistics from Cuba, Egypt, Peru, Philippines (deputy), Morocco, and a representative from UNICEF. Participants described their multidimensional poverty indices and how these have interfaced with the policy process as tools of good governance.
Mauricio Perfetti (Colombia): Colombia’s MPI, launched in 2011, is updated annually based on 15 indicators that draw on 25 minutes’ worth of survey questions. Strong reductions in the MPI were generated by proactively designing and monitoring social public policy. Census data is used to create high-resolution poverty maps.
José Rosero (Ecuador): Launched in February 2016 by President Correa, Ecuador’s MPI measures poverty and extreme poverty annually using rights drawn from the concept of Buen Vivir. The MPI reduced by over one-third between 2009 and 2015, and will be used for policy planning. Ecuador’s National Institute of Statistics (INEC) has infographics, methods, and results online.
Julio Santaella (Mexico): Mexico released their national multidimensional measure in 2009. Mexico’s pioneering index, which is updated every two years with all statistical codes and data freely available online, provides disaggregated information and is proactively used for state and national programming and coordination.
Aboubacar Sedikh Beye (Senegal): Senegal is preparing a National MPI to support the national plan of ‘Emerging Senegal’. It will also become a centre of excellence and training in the production and dissemination of Multidimensional Poverty Statistics for Francophone Africa.
Pali Lehohla (South Africa): The South African MPI (SAMPI) uses census data from 2001 and 2011 to track reductions in the poverty rate and intensity. Job creation was a priority clearly articulated in KwaZulu-Natal, where a citizen satisfaction survey was conducted to tackle the question of matching MPI’s design to people’s values and priorities.
Hedi Saidi (Tunisia): Tunisia’s census-based MPI, which is currently being finalised, reflects the country’s post-revolutionary plan 2016-20 in which youth unemployment is a priority, and voice matters. The MPI design process engaged stakeholders in government, civil society, and academia.
Sabina Alkire (OPHI & GWU): The MPI complements dashboards by focusing on people who face several deprivations simultaneously. The headline statistic can be unpacked into clear, policy-relevant parts, becoming a useful tool for policy. The methodology is flexible and open-source, and both national and comparable MPIs add value to existing monetary poverty measures.
Insightful reflections from the floor were offered from Damar Maceo Cruz (Cuba), regarding Cuba’s MPI; AbouBakr El Gendy (Egypt) on Egypt’s trajectory of poverty analysis; Aníbal Sánchez Aguilar (Peru), on a recently-launched process to design a Peruvian MPI; Romeo S. Recide (Philippines) on their process of making the MPI a reference statistic; Belkacem Abdous (Morocco), on their work linking multidimensional poverty and human development; and Martin Evans (UNICEF), on a child poverty measure that is linked to the MPI.
—
Presentations from the Side Event (all pdf):
— — — — — — — —
About National and Global MPIs:
Governments such as Mexico, Colombia, Bhutan, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Ecuador, and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam use official multidimensional poverty indices (MPIs), to measure SDG 1.2. Each national MPI is tailor-made to the national context. For example, its design may reflect the constitution, or national development plan, or a participatory exploration of what poverty means. The national MPI may be computed using the same survey as income poverty metrics, or a different survey. It may be updated annually or every 2 years. Each national MPI is an official poverty statistic, but an effort is made so that it is used to inform and energise policy.
Yet not all governments have national MPIs. Even when they do, national MPIs cannot be compared. So there is a value-added to having a comparable global MPI across developing countries and/or universally, with extensive and disaggregated information on the composition of poverty for different groups. A global MPI for developing countries has been estimated by OPHI and the UNDP’s Human Development Report Office, and disaggregated for 1,300 subnational regions, as well as by variables like age and rural-urban areas. The global MPI might be particularly useful for SDG target 1.2 of halving multidimensional poverty, and potentially by countries without tailor-made National MPIs at the present time.
About the Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network (MPPN):
This event was co-hosted by the Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network (MPPN), a group of senior representatives from over 40 governments and international institutions, and its Secretariat, OPHI.
The Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network was launched in June 2013 at a distinguished event at the University of Oxford, at which President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia and Professor Amartya Sen gave keynote addresses. The network was established in response to the overwhelming demand for information on implementing multidimensional measures, and for technical and institutional support. The Network Steering Committee includes Ministers and senior government officials from China, South Africa, Mexico and Colombia as well as from OPHI.
Participants in the MPPN include Ministers and senior officials from over 40 governments and international agencies.
| Afghanistan | Costa Rica | India | Nigeria | Seychelles |
| Antigua and Barbuda | Cuba | Iraq | Pakistan | South Africa |
| Angola | Djibouti | Malaysia | Paraguay | Sudan |
| Bhutan | Dominican Rep. | Mexico | Peru | Tajikistan |
| Brazil | Ecuador | Mongolia | Philippines | Tunisia |
| Chile | El Salvador | Morocco | Saint Lucia | Turkey |
| China | Grenada | Mozambique | Saint Vincent | Uruguay |
| Colombia | Honduras | Nepal | Senegal | Vietnam |
Other international institutions that participate in the MPPN include BMZ (Government of Germany), the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLAC), the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Organization of American States (OAS), the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the Statistical, Economic and Social Research and Training Centre for Islamic Countries (SESRIC), and OPHI.
Recent Comments