We are devoting this edition of Dimensions to the littlest ones, who sadly are the poorest in the world. We begin with an article by Martin Evans, who brings us up to date on the latest in the measurement of child poverty, with a review of existing methodologies and key elements to keep in mind when working to reduce child poverty.

Next, we bring you some insights from the data on child poverty across a variety of contexts. First, we review the data in the new 2019 global MPI, which highlights the situation of children around the world. The data are striking: half of those who are multidimensionally poor are children. Children experience deprivations in almost all of the MPI’s indicators, including nutrition, education and housing, which have a powerful impact on their lives, both now and in the future. In countries such as South Sudan, Niger and Ethiopia, over 90% of children are multidimensionally poor.

Then, Abdul Alim and Sabina Alkire discuss the case in South Asia, bringing us some good news from a situation where good news is scarce: the story of 37.5 million so –called pioneer children– young people who are the first generation in their families to complete six years of schooling.

And there’s more: Gonzalo Hernández Licona, Ricardo Aparicio and Paloma Villagómez review the situation of children and adolescents in Mexico, where half of children and adolescents live in poverty.

In an interesting article, Ana Vaz, Christian Oldiges and Sabina Alkire shed light on what to keep in mind when building an MPI specifically for boys, girls and adolescents in order to implement evidence-based public policies. Later, the same authors show the differences between the two multidimensional measures most commonly used to compare international levels of multidimensional poverty – the MPI and the Multiple Overlapping Deprivation Analysis (MODA).

Finally, an interview with Michelle Muschett, former Minister of Social Development of Panama, who talks about her country’s child MPI.

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

Carolina Moreno and Diego Zavaleta