Monday 2 December 2013

UNECE Seminar: "The way forward in poverty measurement"

Geneva, a great international town, these days hosts an UNECE conference «The way forward in poverty measurement». The event brings together a big group of statisticians to discuss the way forward in measurement of poverty. The programme is packed with quite interesting presentations from countries: «Multidimensional poverty and social isolation in Poland», «Providing international comparability of poverty assessments: experience and problems», «Within subjective poverty, multidimensional poverty and food security: a glance at the living conditions of households and children in Colombia»; as well as from international organizations: «The OECD approach to measure and monitor income poverty across countries», «World Bank Poverty Monitoring in Europe and Central Asia: High frequency data», «The measurement of poverty and social inclusion in the EU: achievements and further improvements (Eurostat)»

We will present out cutting edge work on data, three big blocks: (i) Capturing Intersecting Inequalities—Social Exclusion Index; (ii) Development that Lasts—Affordable Human Development Index; and (iii) Getting the best out of qualitative and quantitative data—micronarratives. all three are departing from the basic starting point-current poverty measures (however perfect and sophisticated they are) do not capture certain important things, like how sustainable and affordable is achieved development level? what are inequalities, and more important-intersecting inequalities-in our society? what stands behind certain numbers, can we get stories behind the figures?