The state of Oaxaca is located in southeast Mexico. It has a population of almost four million people residing in its 570 municipalities. Historically, it has been one of the poorest states in the country, but that trend is reversing. We spoke with Oaxaca’s governor, Alejandro Murat Hinojosa, about how they are using multidimensional measurement to tackle poverty.

In September of 2018, Panama launched its Multidimensional Poverty Index for boys, girls and adolescents as a complement to the national MPI launched the prior year. It was the first official MPI for that specific age range in Latin America. We discussed this index with Michelle Muschett, Panama’s former Minister of Social Development.

Colombia is at the forefront globally in multidimensional poverty measurement. Not only was the country a pioneer in creating the national Multidimensional Poverty Index for Colombia (CO-MPI), Colombia also uses this indicator to better monitor poverty goals and the Sustainable Development Goals. Sabina Alkire, Director of OPHI, spoke about these issues with former President Juan Manuel Santos, who is currently a visiting professor at the Department of International Development of Oxford University.

The MPI of El Salvador (MPI-ES) was launched in 2015 after a broad participatory process that involved academics, politicians, and people living in poverty. We spoke to Jimmy Vásquez, who was on the team that led the process for creating the MPI-ES.

James Foster is a co-creator of the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke class of measures, one of the most commonly used methodologies for estimating income poverty. He is also the co-author of the Alkire-Foster methodology, a method for measuring multidimensional poverty that has been adopted by the United Nations Development Programme as well as a number of countries.