WIDER Annual Lecture 21 - How are people poor? Measuring global progress towards zero poverty and the SDGs

Missed the event? Watch the live-stream video of the 2017 WIDER Annual Lecture here. 

Professor Sabina Alkire, Director of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), gave the 2017 WIDER Annual Lecture during which she discussed implications of using the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) and other poverty measures for achieving the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, particularly Sustainable Development Goal 1 — to end poverty in all its forms everywhere.

The Global MPI goes beyond the traditional focus on income and growth in measuring poverty to capture multiple deprivations experienced by poor people around the world. It is unique in its ability to show not only who is poor but how they are poor, in terms of living standards, education, and health. The Global MPI is a headline indicator of acute multidimensional poverty that can be compared directly across countries. All of the indicators used for constructing the Global MPI have been mapped in relation to SDGs, which means that the MPI acts as a barometer of poverty-related SDG attainments. 

The MPI allows countries to identify gaps in policy and thus target the most vulnerable populations — whether they are divided along, ethnic, gender, or generational lines — for relevant interventions.

Programme for UN Day, including the WIDER Annual Lecture