Press Releases

UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD PRESS RELEASE
EMBARGOED UNTIL 0:01am (GMT) Wednesday 7 December 2011
STUDY SAYS ‘MOST POOR PEOPLE DON’T LIVE IN THE POOREST COUNTRIES’

An Oxford University study of 1.65 billion of the world’s poor shows that over twice as many live in ‘middle-income’ countries as in ‘low-income’ countries. Researchers used a poverty measure which assesses a range of deprivations in health, education and living standards at the household level to uncover vast numbers of poor people in middle-income countries. They found that 1,189 million (72 per cent) of the world’s poor live in middle-income countries as compared with 459 million living in low-income countries.

They also discovered that far greater numbers of poor people in middle-income countries are living in ‘severe’ poverty– 586 million as compared with 285 million in low-income countries. Severe poverty captures the very poorest of the poor – those whose poverty is most intense. Entire regions within middle-income countries also have poverty rates comparable to the world’s poorest countries, the findings show.

The poverty measure which produced these findings – the Multidimensional Poverty Index or MPI – takes into account a range of deprivations in areas like education, malnutrition, child mortality, sanitation and services. By measuring directly which deprivations poor people experience together, the research team has produced a high-resolution picture of where the poor live. If people are deprived in one-third or more of the (weighted) indicators they are identified as ‘MPI poor’. MPI poor people who are actually deprived in more than half the weighted indicators are identified as ‘severely poor’.

The poverty measure was devised jointly by Oxford University’s Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and the UNDP’s Human Development Report Office for the flagship Human Development Report. The MPI was featured in the 2011 and 2010 Human Development Reports as one of three experimental new indices complementing the Reports’ annual Human Development Index.

OPHI researchers have now further updated and expanded the MPI, including new analysis of regional disparities in MPI poverty within countries and changes to poverty over time. The OPHI researchers analysed the most recent publicly available household survey data for 109 countries, covering 93 per cent of people living in low and middle-income countries.

OPHI Director, Dr Sabina Alkire, said: ‘If you apply our global poverty measure, you see that most of the world’s poor do not live in low-income countries as you might suppose. We found that nearly three-quarters of the poor live in middle-income countries – along with far greater numbers of the poorest of the poor. These findings are startling. We knew from income data that poverty in middle income countries was high – but now we also see that “multidimensionally” poor people in middle-income countries are not just barely poor: there are many severely poor people among them too, people who have simply been bypassed as their nation’s comparative wealth increased.’

Dr José Manuel Roche, who oversaw the MPI calculations with Dr Alkire in 2011, said: ‘We use household surveys to see what deprivations each person experiences and create an individual poverty profile. We then build out to examine poverty within states and provinces, countries and world regions. The MPI reveals some dramatic disparities in the rates and intensity of poverty within countries, usually hidden by national averages. Hopefully, these findings will help policy makers to focus on delivering some benefits of growth to the poorest.’

Key findings about specific countries and regions

* Half of all MPI poor people live in South Asia and 29% in Sub-Saharan Africa. South Asia is home to 827 million MPI poor people, compared with 473 million in Sub-Saharan Africa.

*Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest MPI poverty of any world region. However, the poorest 26 sub-national regions of South Asia (home to 519 million MPI poor people), have higher MPI poverty than Sub-Saharan Africa’s 38 countries, which 473 million MPI poor people call home. These 26 sub-national regions and 38 countries have comparable rates of multidimensional poverty.

* Nigeria (a middle-income country) is Africa’s largest oil producer, but its North East region has higher MPI poverty than the poorest region of Liberia, a low-income country still recovering from a prolonged civil war. The North East of Nigeria also has over five times more MPI poor people than the entire country of Liberia.

*Disparities within countries can be startlingly wide.  Overall 41 per cent of people in the Republic of Congo are MPI poor, but in the Likouala region, 74 per cent of people are poor; whereas in Brazzaville, the capital region, 27 per cent of people are poor. In Kenya’s regions, the percentage of MPI poor people ranges from 4 to 86 per cent; in Timor-Leste, from 29 to 86 per cent; and in Colombia from 1 to 15 per cent.

*Income classifications hide wide disparities in MPI poverty. In low-income countries, the percentage of people living in MPI poverty ranges from 5 per cent in Kyrgyzstan to 92 per cent in Niger. In lower middle-income countries, this varies from 1 per cent in Georgia to 77 per cent of people in Angola who are MPI poor; and in upper middle-income countries, from 0 per cent in Belarus to 40 per cent in Namibia.

Using updated data for 25 countries, OPHI researchers analysed a total of 109 countries in 2011, with a combined population of 5.3 billion, which represents 79 per cent of the world’s population (using 2008 population figures). About 1.65 billion people in the countries covered – 31 per cent of their entire population – live in multidimensional poverty.

These findings echo an earlier study from the Institute of Development Studies at University of Sussex, UK, which showed that 72 per cent of the world’s income poor live in income poverty. This new work – using an entirely different poverty measure and examining in-country disparities – supports the earlier findings, and adds much detail to the global poverty map, such as the particular regions of middle-income countries where large numbers of MPI poor people live and the composition of their poverty

The global MPI for developing countries was first launched in 2010. The methodology which underpins it (the Alkire and Foster multidimensional approach to assessing poverty, see Notes for Editors below), has already been adapted for national use in Mexico and Colombia, with others in progress.

For more information, please contact the University of Oxford Press Office on +44 (0)1865 280534 or email press.office@admin.ox.ac.uk

For interviews and more information, please contact Paddy Coulter, Director of Communications, and Joanne Tomkinson, Research Communications Officer, OPHI, University of Oxford. Tel: +44(0)1865 271528 or on 079846 11109.

Notes for Editors

Middle and low-income country classifications

 

‘Middle-income’ countries are classed as those with an average yearly wage of between $1,006 and $12,275, while ‘low-income’ countries are those with a national average wage of US $1,005 or below. ‘Lower middle-income countries’ meanwhile have a national average wage of between US$1,005 and $3,975 and ‘upper middle-income’ countries between $3,976 and $12,275 (according to World Bank Income Categories, 2011, based on GNI) http://data.worldbank.org/about/country-classifications/country-and-lending-groups).

OPHI (Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative)

OPHI is a research centre within the Oxford Department of International Development at the University of Oxford. OPHI is led by Sabina Alkire and works to develop and apply new ways to measure and analyse poverty, human development and welfare, drawing on the work of Nobel Laureate economist Amartya Sen. Sabina Alkire and James Foster developed the multidimensional methodology for measuring poverty used by the MPI as well as in national poverty measures, for example in Mexico and Colombia. James E. Foster is Professor of Economics and International Affairs at George Washington University and Research Associate at OPHI. For more about OPHI, visit www.ophi.org.uk

Background to the MPI

The MPI was created by Dr Sabina Alkire, Director of OPHI, based in Oxford’s Department of International Development, and Dr Maria Emma Santos, now at Universidad Nacional del Sur and CONICET, Argentina, and OPHI Research Associate (who worked for OPHI when the measure was created). In 2011, the MPI has been widely updated and expanded, including substantial new analysis of in-country disparities in poverty and changes to poverty over time (see Sabina Alkire, José Manuel Roche, Maria Emma Santos and Suman Seth: http://www.ophi.org.uk/policy/multidimensional-poverty-index/mpi-data-methodology/). The MPI is constructed using a methodology developed by Dr Alkire and Professor James E. Foster outlined above. Since 2010 the MPI has featured in UNDP’s flagship Human Development Report as one of four indices of human development.

Calculation of poverty using the Multidimensional Poverty Index

A person is identified as ‘multidimensionally poor’ if he or she is deprived in one-third or more of (weighted) indicators. In 2011, MPI poor people who are actually deprived in more than half the weighted indicators are identified as severely poor. The MPI of a country or region is the product of the proportion of poor people (H) and the average share of deprivations that poor people face at the same time i.e. the average intensity of their poverty (A) – so MPI=HxA. By directly measuring the different types of poverty in each household, the MPI captures how different groups of people experience concurrent deprivations. See Sabina Alkire, José Manuel Roche, Maria Emma Santos and Suman Seth at: http://www.ophi.org.uk/publications/ophi-working-papers.

Sources of data

The MPI relies on the most recent data available, mainly from three datasets that are publicly available and comparable for most developing countries: USAID’s Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), UNICEF’s Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey (MICS), and the WHO’s World Health Survey (WHS). DHS surveys for 54 countries, MICS surveys for 32 countries, and WHS for 17 countries. Country-specific surveys were used for Argentina: Brazil, Mexico, Morocco, Occupied Palestinian Territory and South Africa. The full list, per country, can be accessed at: http://www.ophi.org.uk/policy/multidimensional-poverty-index/mpi-data-methodology/  Data in 2011 ranges from 2000-2010; significant further updates will be evident in 2012 and 2013 as new data are released.

 

ENDS

 

COLOMBIA ADOPTS WORLD’S FIRST POVERTY REDUCTION PLAN TO USE NEW OXFORD UNIVERSITY MEASURE

View media coverage of this release

 (Oxford – 22 August) In a bold and welcome new move, the Colombian government has committed to firm targets to close the country’s poverty gaps using an innovative adaptation of a poverty measure developed by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), University of Oxford.

Colombia’s binding “multidimensional” poverty-reduction targets mark a major step forward in global poverty measurement and reduction efforts. Adding to traditional income-based approaches to poverty, the new national Multidimensional Poverty Index Colombia (MPI-Colombia) assesses broader social and health-related aspects of poverty:  education, employment, the condition of children and young people, health, access to public services and housing conditions. This method works like a high resolution lens on poverty and reveals a vivid spectrum of challenges facing the poorest households. Giving a “multidimensional” picture of the many deprivations that batter poor peoples’ lives at the same time, the method helps to target development resources more effectively.

The poverty measure used as the basis for constructing the MPI-Colombia was developed by Sabina Alkire, Director of OPHI and James Foster, Professor James Foster of George Washington University. The Colombian government has adapted and developed this method to reflect the country’s needs and priorities, particularly related to social protection. The first global poverty index to use this measure – the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) – was adopted by the United Nations Development Programme’s flagship Human Development Report in 2010.

The government’s new development plan sets ambitious targets to reduce both income and multidimensional poverty. The government plans to reduce multidimensional poverty by 13 per cent over four years – from 35 per cent of the entire population in 2008 to 22 per cent in 2014.

Colombia’s innovative approach to poverty reduction is part of a growing global trend. In 2009, the Government of Mexico launched the world’s first national multidimensional poverty measure to use an adaptation of the method developed by OPHI. The Colombian government has now used the same technique to create the world’s first national multidimensional poverty measure tied to a binding multidimensional poverty reduction plan. This response more fully addresses the multiple hardships facing poor people than simple income measures alone.

Colombian President, Juan Manuel Santos’s new National Development Plan reflects his personal commitment to making poverty reduction the centrepiece of his government – and to building on the country’s substantial progress in social reform in the last decade. The plan has three pillars: employment, poverty reduction and security. President Santos has made poverty reduction the top priority.

Sabina Alkire, Director of OPHI, says ‘Colombia’s new development plan is an internationally significant breakthrough in national poverty measurement and reduction efforts. In times of global economic turmoil, this sets a powerful example to other governments in the region and beyond who want to know where poverty is most acute and set in place firm plans to fight it.’

The MPI-Colombia has been designed according to national needs and priorities: it creates a clear accountability system involving the ministries of Education, Social Protection, Housing, and the other main actors involved in social policy.  ‘The Government of Colombia hasn’t just created a new poverty measure – we have created a comprehensive new poverty strategy. This has been embraced into the heart of the government – as concrete goals, as a mechanism of accountability, and as a robust test of our extreme poverty reduction strategy,’ says Hernando José Gómez, Director of the National Planning Department (DNP).

On 24 August, the DNP will hold an international seminar on “Poverty Reduction and Social Mobility in Colombia: Measures and Strategies” to present the new measure.  The seminar, opened by Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos and Hernando José Gómez will present three tools which underpin Colombia’s new poverty strategy: 1) The MPI-Colombia and its findings, 2) The new income poverty line and its findings, and 3) A new Commission on Social Mobility.

The seminar will take place from 8am to 5pm at Centro de Convenciones Compensar – Auditorio Teatro, Bogota, Colombia. For more information see http://www.dnp.gov.co/Programas/Educaci%C3%B3nyculturasaludempleoypobreza/SeminarioInternacional.aspx

Interview opportunities

Sabina Alkire and James Foster, co-creators of the measure adapted by Colombia, will be in Bogota from 22nd-24th of August 2011. To arrange interviews, contact Joanne Tomkinson, OPHI Research Communications Officer, on +447924599865 or +44 7984611109 or through joanne.tomkinson@qeh.ox.ac.uk<mailto:joanne.tomkinson@qeh.ox.ac.uk>.
Information about the Alkire-Foster measure – utilized by Colombia – is available on the OPHI website: http://www.ophi.org.uk/research/multidimensional-poverty/. Detail about OPHI’s Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), adopted by the UNDP Human Development Report in 2010, can be found at: http://www.ophi.org.uk/policy/multidimensional-poverty-index/

About OPHI (Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative)

OPHI is a research centre within the Oxford Department of International Development at the University of Oxford<http://www.qeh.ox.ac.uk/>. OPHI is led by Sabina Alkire<http://www.ophi.org.uk/about/people/sabina-alkire/>, and works to develop and apply new ways to measure and analyse poverty, human development and welfare, drawing on the work of Nobel Laureate economist Amartya Sen. James Foster<http://www.ophi.org.uk/about/people/james-foster/> is a Research Associate at OPHI and a Professor of Economics and International Affairs at George Washington University<http://www.gwu.edu/~elliott/faculty/foster.cfm>.
www.ophi.org.<http://www.ophi.org.uk/>uk

 

OXFORD UNIVERSITY AND UNDP JOIN FORCES TO LAUNCH A BETTER WAY TO MEASURE GLOBAL POVERTY

(London, 14 July 2010) – The Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) of Oxford University and the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) today launched a new poverty measure that gives a “multidimensional” picture of people living in poverty which its creators say could help target development resources more effectively.

The new measure, the Multidimensional Poverty Index, or MPI, was developed and applied by OPHI with UNDP support, and will be featured in the forthcoming 20th anniversary edition of the UNDP Human Development Report. The MPI supplants the Human Poverty Index, which had been included in the annual Human Development Reports since 1997.

The 2010 UNDP Human Development Report will be published in late October, but research findings from the Multidimensional Poverty Index were made available today at a policy forum in London and on line on the websites of OPHI (www.ophi.org.uk) and the UNDP Human Development Report (http://hdr.undp.org/en/).

The MPI assesses a range of critical factors or ‘deprivations’ at the household level: from education to health outcomes to assets and services. Taken together, these factors provide a fuller portrait of acute poverty than simple income measures, according to OPHI and UNDP. The measure reveals the nature and extent of poverty at different levels: from household up to regional, national and international level. This new multidimensional approach to assessing poverty has been adapted for national use in Mexico, and is now being considered by Chile and Colombia.

‘The MPI is like a high resolution lens which reveals a vivid spectrum of challenges facing the poorest households,’ said OPHI Director Dr Sabina Alkire, who created the MPI with Professor James Foster of George Washington University and Maria Emma Santos of OPHI.

The UNDP Human Development Report Office is joining forces with OPHI to promote international discussions on the practical applicability of this multidimensional approach to measuring poverty. ‘We are featuring the Multidimensional Poverty Index in the 20th anniversary edition of the Human Development Report this year because we consider it a highly innovative approach to quantifying acute poverty,’ Dr Jeni Klugman, Director of the UNDP Human Development Report Office and the principal author of this year’s Report, said. ‘The MPI provides a fuller measure of poverty than the traditional dollar-a-day formulas. It is a valuable addition to the family of instruments we use to examine broader aspects of well-being, including UNDP’s Human Development Index and other measures of inequality across the population and between genders.’

OPHI researchers analysed data from 104 countries with a combined population of 5.2 billion (78 per cent of the world total). About 1.7 billion people in the countries covered – a third of their entire population – live in multidimensional poverty, according to the MPI. This exceeds the 1.3 billion people, in those same countries, estimated to live on $1.25 a day or less, the more commonly accepted measure of ‘extreme’ poverty.

The MPI also captures distinct and broader aspects of poverty. For example, in Ethiopia 90 per cent of people are ‘MPI poor’ compared to the 39 per cent who are classified as living in ‘extreme poverty’ under income terms alone. Conversely, 89 per cent of Tanzanians are extreme income-poor, compared to 65 per cent who are MPI poor. The MPI captures deprivations directly – in health and educational outcomes and key services, such as water, sanitation and electricity. In some countries these resources are provided free or at low cost; in others they are out of reach even for many working people with an income.

Half of the world’s poor as measured by the MPI live in South Asia (51 per cent or 844 million people) and one quarter in Africa (28 per cent or 458 million). Niger has the greatest intensity and incidence of poverty in any country, with 93 per cent of the population classified as poor in MPI terms.

Even in countries with strong economic growth in recent years, the MPI analysis reveals the persistence of acute poverty. India is a major case in point. There are more MPI poor people in eight Indian states alone (421 million in Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal) than in the 26 poorest African countries combined (410 million). The MPI also reveals great variations within countries: Nairobi has the same level of MPI poverty as the Dominican Republic, whereas Kenya’s rural northeast is poorer in MPI terms than Niger.

The recently released 2010 UN Millennium Development Goals Report stressed that the MDGs will be fully achieved only by addressing the needs of those most disadvantaged by geography, age, gender or ethnicity, OPHI researchers point out. ‘Our measure identifies the most vulnerable households and groups and enables us to understand exactly which deprivations afflict their lives”, said Dr. Alkire. ‘The new measure can help governments and development agencies wishing to target aid more effectively to those specific communities.’

MPI Launch Event:

The MPI policy forum will take place at the Commonwealth Club, 25 Northumberland Avenue, London WC2N 5AP on Wednesday 14 July at 10am-11.30am, and will be followed by interview opportunities. To attend the event, please email sarah.valenti@qeh.ox.ac.uk. For interviews and more information, please contact the University of Oxford Press Office on +44 (0)1865 280534 or press.office@admin.ox.ac.uk. Or contact Dr Sabina Alkire, Director of OPHI, University of Oxford, on mobile: +44 (0)7792 505847 For further information on the UNDP Human Development Report please contact William Orme at 1-212-906-6763 or william.orme@undp.org Paddy Coulter, Director of Communications, and Sarah Valenti, Research Communications Officer, OPHI, University of Oxford. Tel: +44(0)1865 271528

Notes for Editors:

Calculation of poverty using the Multidimensional Poverty Index

A household (and therefore all its members) is defined as ‘multidimensionally poor’ if it is deprived in some combination of two to six ‘indicators’ (or more than 30 per cent of the weighted indicators). The number varies because the indicators carry different weights. The MPI of a country or region is the product of the proportion of poor people and the average number of deprivations that poor households face at the same time i.e. the average intensity of their poverty. By directly measuring the different types of poverty in each household, the MPI captures how different groups of people experience concurrent deprivations. (See ‘Acute Multidimensional Poverty: A New Index for Developing Countries’ by Sabina Alkire and Maria Emma Santos at: http://www.ophi.org.uk/publications/ophi-working-papers).

OPHI (Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative)

OPHI is a research centre within the Oxford Department of International Development at the University of Oxford. OPHI is led by Sabina Alkire and works to develop and apply new ways to measure and analyse poverty, human development and welfare, drawing on the work of Nobel Laureate economist Amartya Sen. Sabina Alkire and James Foster developed the multidimensional methodology for measuring poverty. James Foster is Professor of Economics and International Affairs at George Washington University and Research Associate at OPHI. For more about OPHI, visit www.ophi.org.uk

The UNDP Human Development Report

The Human Development Reports produced since 1990 by the United Nations Development Programme are widely considered the most influential of the many regular reports by multilateral institutions. Unique among UN publications for their tradition of intellectual independence – though sponsored by UNDP, they do not represent its official views or policies – the Human Development Reports are best known for their often controversial analyses of critical issues and the annual Human Development Index, which was created as an alternative to income-based measures of national and individual well-being. The 20th anniversary edition of the Human Development Report will be released in October 2010. The Report examines decades of Human Development data trends, refines the original Human Development Index with new databases and methodologies, and introduces new measures adjusting the Index to reflect internal national inequalities and gender disparities.

The 1997 Human Development Report introduced the Human Poverty Index (HPI), which measured multiple deprivations in key aspects of human development. UNDP researchers concluded that the HPI had limited utility because it aggregated average deprivation levels for each dimension and thus could not be linked to any specific group of people. This led to the HPI’s substitution in the 2010 Report by OPHI’s new Multidimensional Poverty Index, which uses microeconomic data to reflect the percentage of households that experience overlapping deprivations in three dimensions—education, health and living conditions. For more about UNDP’s Human Development Reports, visit http://hdr.undp.org

A NEW APPROACH TO POVERTY MEASUREMENT IN LATIN AMERICA

(12 May, 2010) The Chilean Government will examine proposals to move to a new multidimensional approach to poverty measurement this week. The new approach, developed by researchers at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, University of Oxford, goes beyond the traditional narrow focus on income to use a suite of additional indicators, such as health, housing, education and access to food, to determine who is poor. The proposals will be discussed by international and national experts during the seminar International Seminar “Multidimensional poverty measurement in Latin America at the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean’s (ECLAC) headquarters in Santiago on 13-14 May (see the ECLAC press release below). The seminar is organized by the Ministry of Planning and Cooperation of Chile, ECLAC, the Chilean Foundation for Overcoming Poverty and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI).The initiative signifies growing interest in multidimensional poverty in Latin America. The Mexican Government became the first to adopt OPHI’s measurement method in their national poverty measure at the end of 2009 and other countries in the region are exploring the possibility of using this or related methods.

Background
Traditionally, measures of poverty and well-being have relied on monetary indicators such as income or Gross Domestic Product (GDP). But such metrics can miss a lot. For example, income poverty has fallen in India. In contrast, the prevalence of child malnutrition has remained at nearly 50%. A multidimensional approach considers households to be poor if they are deprived in several different ‘dimensions’ simultaneously (e.g. education, health, nutrition, housing and income) that contribute towards a person or nation’s welfare. To combat poverty effectively, we need to understand its components. Economists Sabina Alkire and James Foster at OPHI have developed a new method for measuring multidimensional poverty, the Alkire Foster method. The Alkire Foster method not only identifies who is poor and how poor they are, it tells us what the major components of poverty are among different groups of people. For example, in Mexico the national rate of extreme multidimensional poverty (defined as at least three deprivations plus insufficient income) is 10.5 percent with an average of 3.9 deprivations, whereas among the indigenous people of Mexico the rate for extreme multidimensional poverty is 39.2 percent with an average of 4.2 deprivations.

ECLAC INFORMATION SERVICES

PRESS RELEASE

EXPERTS TO DISCUSS MULTIDIMENSIONAL POVERTY MEASUREMENT

The meeting will focus on proposals to measure poverty incorporating non-material aspects, such as the deprivation of capabilities and lack of access to basic rights. (11 May 2010) International and national experts will examine proposals for measuring poverty in the region from a multidimensional perspective during a seminar at the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in Santiago on 13-14 May.The International Seminar “Multidimensional poverty measurement in Latin America” will analyze approaches and methodologies for measuring poverty that go beyond considering merely income levels and study their empirical application in several countries.

The seminar is organized by ECLAC, the Ministry of Planning and Cooperation of Chile (Mideplan), the Foundation for Overcoming Poverty (FSP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI).

Measuring and characterizing poverty appropriately is crucial to designing effective public policies to address it. In Latin America, the “poor” have been traditionally defined as those whose income is not enough to satisfy their basic needs.

In recent years there has been increasing interest in measuring poverty from a multidimensional perspective that takes into account not only the lack of resources, but also deprivations in other areas of human life, including non-material ones, like the deprivation of capabilities, loss of freedom and lack of access to fundamental rights.
The seminar will be inaugurated on Thursday, 13 May at 9 a.m. by ECLAC Executive Secretary Alicia Bárcena, Mideplan Minister Felipe Kast, OPHI Director Sabina Alkire and FSP President Rodrigo Jordán.

Speakers include James Foster, of George Washington University, Conchita D’Ambrosio, of the University of Milán, and ECLAC experts on social development and statistics.

The media is welcome to attend the seminar
Raúl Prebisch Conference Room, ECLAC headquarters,Av. Dag Hammarskjöld 3477, Vitacura, Santiago – Chile.
For enquiries, please contact ECLAC’s Public Information and Web Services Section. Email: dpisantiago@cepal.org; telephone: (56-2) 210-2040/2149.

Notes to Editors

About OPHI (Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative)
OPHI is a research centre within the Department of International Development at the University of Oxford. OPHI is led by Sabina Alkire and works to develop and apply new ways to measure and analyse poverty, human development and welfare, drawing on the work of Nobel Laureate economist Amartya Sen. Sabina Alkire and James Foster have developed a multidimensional methodology for measuring poverty, the Alkire Foster measure. James Foster is a Research Associate at OPHI and a Professor of Economics and International Affairs at George Washington University. For more information visit: http://ophi.qeh.ox.ac.uk/.

NOBEL ECONOMIST TO OPEN NEW RESEARCH CENTRE AT OXFORD UNIVERSITY

30 May 2007

Nobel Laureate economist and celebrated Harvard professor Amartya Sen will mark the opening a new centre for the study of poverty and human development at Oxford University, with a public lecture on ‘What Theory of Justice’: 30 May 2007, Wednesday 5.00 – 6.30pm, Sheldonian Theatre, Broad Street, Oxford.

The new Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), based at the University’s Department of International Development (Queen Elizabeth House), aims to advance research on human development and economics. Its scholars hope their research will help policy and decision-makers in governments, international institutions, and independent development agencies, to improve human wellbeing.

The new centre is inspired by Amartya Sen’s writings on human development and capability. Sen’s vision is that sustainable economic growth will be complemented by policies that promote fairer distribution of wealth; political systems that support democratic activity; institutions that offer health, education and social protection; flourishing cultural activities and societies in which human rights are protected.