Post 2015: Global Action for an Inclusive and Sustainable Future

CHApTER FIvE
There is a
need for better
measurement but
also for greater
sensitivity to and
incorporation
of those aspects
of poverty that
cannot be
measured.
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their ‘joint distribution’ (which can be interpreted
as a measure of the intensity of household poverty).
the implication is that it is somewhat worse to be
deprived in multiple dimensions (or indicators)
than in just one. therefore, the mpI combines
both the incidence and depth of multidimensional
poverty in a single measure, and enables policymakers
to focus on such households.
the mpI results both echo and deepen the findings
from work on income poverty (for example, alkire
and Santos, 2010). according to the latest mpI data,
some 1.6 billion people, representing 31% of people
living in developing countries, are living in extreme
poverty – well above the 1.3 billion identified by
the $1.25 a day measure. While mpI levels are
loosely correlated with income poverty, there is also
widespread variation in certain countries. Similarly,
the mpI identifies a broad association between the
incidence and intensity of poverty, but also points
to countries in which one aspect is much more
pronounced than the other. mpI measures also
point to the concentration of poverty in mIcs and
in particular countries such as India, where there are
many more poor people than in SSa, although the
intensity of multidimensional poverty is on average
higher in the latter. trend data for ten countries with
observations for at least two years in the 2000s show
a reduction in all of them (alkire et al., 2011).
Efforts to apply a broader multidimensional
approach tend to be constrained by a lack of
data. there are signs that this focus is beginning
to influence official statistics, albeit slowly and
haltingly. one good example is sustainability,
where natural capital accounting – which seeks
to assign a value to the natural resources used
in production – moved forward with the recent
adoption of accounting procedures by the un
Statistical commission, despite criticism of the
‘commoditisation’ of common resources.
there have also been advances in other areas,
although a major gap pertains to intra-household
EuropEan rEport on DEvElopmEnt 2013
dynamics. there has been considerable attention
devoted to inequalities in childhood but less to
later periods of life. there has been some attention
to gender-based differences but household surveys
often focus on the nominal head, who is usually
assumed to be any man who is present. there is
a continuing need to address intra-household
disparities across dimensions of wellbeing; surveys
that seek to include several members of the same
household show that this is feasible and that it
provides useful insights for policy.
at the same time, it is important to be realistic
about what can and cannot be measured, and to
acknowledge the limitations of poverty numbers.
there is a need for better measurement but also
for greater sensitivity to and incorporation of
those aspects of poverty that cannot be measured.
on the measurement side, official statistics on
non-monetary aspects of wellbeing are weak –
particularly for complex aspects such as the quality
of health and education, agency and governance.
Subjective measures may yield useful insights but
need to be further refined, and more attention
needs to be devoted to their interpretation. beyond
these technical issues (which are often associated
with political and/or attitudinal constraints),
recent research shows that statistics cannot capture
many aspects that matter to people. naila Kabeer
once commented that statistical perspectives on
decision-making offered ‘simple windows on
complex realities’, and this applies more broadly
to measurement endeavours, particularly in light
of the wealth of evidence on the ‘multiplicity of
meanings’ that people accord to their experience
of deprivation (chambers, 2004). Such aspects are
still divorced from the current poverty discourse
and mDG debate, which therefore lags ‘behind
our understanding of realities on the ground in
significant ways’; for instance, in underplaying
‘powerlessness, stigma, discrimination and
isolation…’, as well as the interconnections among
deprivations and policies (poverty analysis
Discussion Group, 2012: 3).