Editorial – Dimensions 13

Last October, OPHI and the United Nations Development Programme launched the latest edition of the global Multidimensional Poverty Index, containing data disaggregated by gender, ethnicity, race and caste – key information to leave no one behind. In this edition of Dimensions, Kelly-Ann Fonderson briefly describes the main findings of this report.

Statistics of this kind are essential for decision-making, as Iván Ojeda, Director of Paraguay’s newly created National Institute of Statistics (INE), explains in this issue. Mr Ojeda took on the dual challenge of founding this new institution while also supporting the process of developing Paraguay’s first Multidimensional Poverty Index. Here, he tells us some details about this process.

From Paraguay, we go to Thailand where Rawirin Techaploog and Suphannada Lowhachai review the process of creating a national MPI for Thailand and its future use in public policy.

In this issue we not only talk about MPIs, but also see how the multidimensional Alkire-Foster method has been used in South Africa’s COVID-19 Vulnerability Index. Risenga Maluleke talks about how it was created and applied.

Continuing this theme, Jakob Dirksen shows us the use of these indices for guiding public policies in the context of health emergencies, such as the current pandemic. Nicolai Suppa and Ricardo Nogales also discuss the usefulness and challenges of simulations analysing multidimensional poverty in the context of COVID-19.

Turning to the private sector, we have the contribution of Andrés Fernández, who describes how the Business MPI has supported the reduction of multidimensional poverty in Costa Rica.

John Hammock talks about the power of electricity to break the poverty cycle. Electricity is a crucial proxy for multidimensional poverty, and one of its best predictors.

Finally, Michelle Muschett reviews the first edition of OPHI’s Executive Education programme, which took place in August 2021, training leaders and policymakers in using the MPI for policy.

We invite you to read Dimensions, a new perspective for understanding poverty.

Carolina Moreno, editor.