Insights ‘ Multidimensional poverty : How to choose dimensions

Content Provider	Semantic Scholar
Author	Alkire, Sabina
Copyright Year	2007
Abstract	One of the major insights and attractions of the capability approach/human development framework is its multidimensional perspective on human wellbeing. There is no single measure, like a utility index or income, which can adequately capture all the richness and complexity of flourishing human lives in the diverse context of our world. Living with less than one dollar a day does not capture the poverty of suffering racist abuse. An increase of GDP per capita does not reflect the environmental degradation and resulting impacts on health and general well-being which might have accompanied that growth. These limitations of using monetary indices to assess poverty are well known. These indices are perhaps convenient to use but they remain vastly inadequate, often detrimentally so, in their information content and flexibility to capture the human condition. Thus, when poverty becomes conceptualized in multiple dimensions which cannot be reduced to a common indicator, there is considerable excitement about the new possibilities for understanding human lives. This excitement however, is also accompanied by significant challenges. Which dimensions of poverty are most relevant in a given context? How to assess poverty in an urban slum in Brazil? Should the relevant dimensions be different from those used to assess poverty among slum dwellers in Nairobi? How can information about these dimensions be collected? If lack of respect appears to be the most relevant dimensions of poverty that the urban slum dwellers identify, how to measure it? How to monitor whether a given public policy or a given project has impacted on what people themselves saw as the most important dimension of their wellbeing? Which indices to use? Questions abound. This Maitreyee tries to address some of these issues which stem from the multidimensional perspective on wellbeing. Most contributions were presented during a workshop on 'Multidimensional Poverty: How to Choose Dimensions' held at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford from 23-25 May 2006. Sabina Alkire opens the discussion by reviewing the strengths and weakness of various methods which are currently used for choosing poverty dimensions. Mario Biggeri applies these methods to the assessment of children's wellbeing. Alex Frediani explores how participatory methods can be used to evaluate a squatter upgrading programme in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil. 'In the Practice' section examines how two non-governmental organizations have tried to operationalise this multidimensional view of poverty in their activities. John Hammock describes the experience of Oxfam America in choosing which projects to focus on and in which countries. SNV, a Dutch NGO XXXXXXXXX. As always, we welcome comments and suggestions. If you wish to propose a specific theme or wish to contribute by writing us a short article, do not hesitate to contact us. The interface between research and politics will be the subject of our next Maitreyee in June.
File Format	PDF HTM / HTML
Alternate Webpage(s)	http://www.hd-ca.org/pubs/Maitreyee7_February_07.pdf
Language	English
Access Restriction	Open
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article