HDCA Summer School on Capability and Multidimensional Poverty
HDCA Summer School will this year be organised in New Delhi, India 28 August - 9 September 2008 and organised jointly by HDCP-IRC and OPHI. The purpose of this intensive summer school is to provide a thorough conceptual and technical introduction to current literature and techniques of measuring and comparing capabilities. It is aimed for Masters & PhD students, post-docs and researchers who are working on multidimensional poverty and capability measurement or analysis. For further information and guidance for application click here.
2008 Tentative 2-week Programme.
25 June 2008. Sabina Alkire presented at the 12 th European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI) General Conference
The conference focussed on "Global Governance for Sustainable Development: The need for Policy Coherence and new Partnerships". The conference was held in Geneva, Switzerland from 24-28 June 2008. Dr. Alkire presented a paper titled “Counting and Multidimensional Poverty” authored by Sabina Alkire and James Foster. The conference blog can be found here. The full paper is available here.
17 June 2008. Seminar. Francisco Ferreira (World Bank) "Inequality of economic opportunity in Latin America"
1-2.15pm Seminar Room C, Manor Road Building - paper
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OPHI Open Dialogue day 16 June 2008
OPHI Workshop on Weighting, 26-27 May 2008
OPHI Workshop on Measuring Freedoms, 28-30 May
OECD features OPHI's work in Measuring Progress of Societies newsletter
The first issue of the new OECD newsletter on Measuring the Progress of Societies features an article by OPHI Director Sabina Alkire on What is Missing? New Data, New Measures, which gives an overview of OPHI's work on Missing Dimensions and on Multidimensional Comparison. To read the newsletter, click here.
ODS December issue focuses on Missing Dimensions of Poverty Data
The December issue of Oxford Development Studies is a special issue based on the proceedings of OPHI's launch in May. It presents an introduction to the research theme; revised versions of the papers focusing on aspects of missing poverty data, with proposed indicators and questions to measure each; and the comments of discussants Grace Bediako, François Bourguignon and Stephan Klasen.
OPHI and CHEDS in China
The OPHI team recently had the opportunity to take its ‘Missing Dimensions’ workshop to China through the generous hospitality of our sister organization, the Centre for Human and Economic Development Studies (CHEDS) at Peking University. Full Story
OPHI researcher presents paper at ISQOLS conference in December 07
Emma Samman, OPHI Research Officer, presented a paper, The 'Missing Dimensions' of wellbeing: Results of a pilot survey, at the 2007 International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies (ISQOLS) Conference, held 6-8 December in San Diego, California. To learn more about the conference, click here.
OPHI team to launch Missing Dimensions research theme in Beijing
The Center for Human and Economic Development (CHEDS) of Peking University is hosting an international workshop on “Dimensions and Indicators of Human Development” on 3-4 November 2007. OPHI team members will present revised versions of papers on missing dimensions of poverty data, originally delivered at OPHI’s Launch in May, and solicit the input of Chinese researchers and policymakers. To see the program of the event, click here. For a list of participants, click here.
Call for proposals on multidimensional poverty analysis
Jointly with the Poverty and Economic Policy PEP Network, OPHI is offering up to five grants of $CAN 20,000 for research on analyzing poverty in the multidimensional context of the capabilities approach. Proposals are welcome for the two themes: 1. Missing Dimensions of Poverty Data and 2. Identification and Multidimensional Poverty. To see the call for proposals, click here. For further particulars for these two themes, click here.
2007 Conference of the HDCA: "Ideas Changing History"
OPHI staff participated in the 2007 HDCA Annual Conference "Ideas Changing History" held on the 17th-20th of September in New York. The event, hosted by the Graduate Program in International Affairs at The New School in New York City and supported by Frederick S. Pardee and the Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future at Boston University, featured keynote speakers such as Martha Nussbaum, Amartya Sen, Hilary Putnam, Anthony Appiah and Sir Richard Jolly. Over 320 persons attended, and 170 papers were presented. learn more...
The inaugural issue of OPHI Updates for May-June 2007, a 2 page overview of the Launch events, can be downloaded here.
New centre to measure missing aspects of poverty
31 May 2007, Oxford Blueprint Vol. 7 No. 11
A new breed of economists at the new Oxford Poverty and Human Development Institute (OPHI), which launches on 30 May, has rejected the idea that increasing national income is sufficient indicator of its population’s overall prospects. read more...
Launch of new centre to measure missing aspects of poverty
30 May 2007, Oxford University Website
A new breed of economists at the new Oxford Poverty and Human Development Institute (OPHI), which launches on 30 May, has rejected the idea that increasing national income is sufficient indicator of its population’s overall prospects. read more...
Sen Lecture at Oxford
31 May 2007, Colin Farrelly, Blog: In Search of Enlightenment
Last night Amartya Sen gave an excellent public lecture at the magnificent Sheldonian Theatre here in Oxford. His talk launched OPHI, Oxford’s Poverty and Human Development Initiative. Below, I summarize the central arguments he advanced in his 60 minute talk. read more...
OPHI Director Sabina Alkire corrects articles reporting the supposed creation of a "general well-being index" or "happiness index"
30 May 2007, Letter to the Editor, Times of India
Dear Editor, I must correct the reference in your article of May 30, 2007 "GMI -The New Economic Measure of Happiness" to the development of a Gross Wellbeing Index at Oxford University. This is seriously misleading. There is no GWI. We have launched the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) as an energetic research centre which has proposed indicators on employment, empowerment, physical safety and so on - and which is developing a multidimensional poverty index. But it is early days. Nothing so grand as a gross wellbeing index ever entered our discussions.
Sabina Alkire
Director, Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative
Dept of international Development, Queen Elizabeth House
University of Oxford
Money is not the simple antidote to poverty says OPHI's director
June 2007, Developments Magazine Issue 38
If we can measure what makes poor people happy, then we can improve pro-poor policies. That's the view of the director of Oxford University’s new economics research centre, the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Institute (OPHI),... rejects the idea that income is the most significant contributor to human wellbeing. Instead attention is being turned to yardsticks that seem to have little to do with economists' traditional concerns about production and consumption of goods and services. read more...
Coming up
OPHI Workshop on Adaptive Preferences, October 2008
Past Events
OPHI Open Dialogue day 16 June 2008
OPHI Workshop on Weighting, 26-27 May 2008
OPHI Workshop on Measuring Freedoms, 28-30 May
17 June 2008. Seminar. Francisco Ferreira (World Bank) "Inequality of economic opportunity in Latin America"
1-2.15pm Seminar Room C, Manor Road Building
12 June 2008. Seminar. Julio Boltvinik and Araceli Damian (Colegio de Mexico) "Multidimensional Poverty Measurement Methods. The Latin American tradition and the Mexican Experience"
1-2.15pm Seminar Room 1, Department of International Development (QEH)
15 May 2008 Seminar. James Foster "Counting and Multidimensional Poverty Measures"
5-6.30 pm, Queen Elizabeth House, Seminar Room 1. Prof Foster will present his paper with Sabina Alkire (2008): "Counting and Multidimensional Poverty Measures," OPHI Working Paper 7
Classes with James Foster, Trinity Term
James Foster, a Visiting Fellow at OPHI in May-June 2008, will present several classes in QEH Seminar Room 1 from 2:00-3:30 pm, unless otherwise indicated. For further information, click here.
OPHI was launched in a series of events, including three public seminars on 30-31 May 2007, and by a Lecture in the Sheldonian Theatre by Amartya Sen on 30 May at 5pm. The research papers, power point presentations, and the report of the workshops are freely available on the website, and some presentations are available in video.
The high level research workshops and public events addressed two themes:
I. Missing Data for Poverty & Human Development Research: This workshop explored a limited set of indicators for inclusion in national household surveys to generate internationally comparable data. The papers proposed a small set of indicators in each of five dimensions: work (including informal work), physical safety, empowerment, relationships , and significance . Indicators were proposed on the basis of transparent characteristics including comparability, robustness, explanatory power, and potential value. More info...
II. Multidimensional Poverty Comparisons: This research workshop explored the issue of interpersonal comparisons of well-being, when these are assessed in more than one dimension. More info ...
For photos of the launch events, click here.
Workshop on Teaching Human Development, Oxford, 28-31 March 2007
OPHI convened a four-day workshop in March 2007 on educational material for human development, to discuss course design and curriculum, pedagogical approaches to teaching human development, virtual learning spaces, textbooks and other teaching materials. The meeting took place in Oxford. This was the first OPHI meeting of academics teaching or wishing to start teaching in human development. The workshop included participants from universities and research centres in Brazil, China, Mexico, Uganda, Turkey, Japan, Papua New Guinea/Australia, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Slovakia/Bulgaria, Uzbekistan, Peru, Afghanistan, US and UK. It was an enriching opportunity to establish in a participatory way educational materials on human development as well as an ongoing learning community.
For the official program click
here
For photos of the event click here