Abstract
The first Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) tasks countries with eradicating poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions. This presents considerable challenges for poverty researchers and national statistical offices charged with collecting data to monitor progress on meeting of this ambitious target. Our paper focuses on how the different dimensions of poverty might be mapped out, and compared, within and across heterogeneous countries and societies, using a method called the Consensual Approach to poverty measurement. It explains how the approach can inform different poverty measurement frameworks (e.g. rights based, capabilities or deprivation of basic needs approaches), how it has already been used successfully across low, middle- and high-income countries and sets out some key lessons and future challenges. The paper uses data from the demographic and health surveys (DHS) and World Bank’s Core Welfare Indicator Questionnaire surveys to demonstrate cross- and intra-national consensus about what constitutes minimally acceptable living standards across several countries in West Africa; we suggest that existing survey platforms, like national household income and expenditure surveys, DHS or even UNICEF’s Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys could (with minor additions) be used to apply the Consensual Approach to measure multidimensional poverty in children and adults across countries, and thus aid reporting for the SDGs.
Highlights
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) succeeded in focussing and sustaining global attention on the issue of extreme poverty and its correlates in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs)
Using empirical data from the World Bank’s Core Welfare Indicator Questionnaire (CWIQ) surveys and the demographic and health surveys (DHS), we argue that the Consensual Approach has clear advantages when conceiving and defining multidimensional poverty, and that it can inform other poverty measurement frameworks—e.g. ones which use rights based approaches or Sen’s Capabilities framework
We present basic descriptives of the proportion of adults in five west African countries –Benin, Liberia, Gabon, Guinea and Mali—responding to the CWIQ about whether item/ activities are necessary to maintain a minimum standard of living
Summary
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) succeeded in focussing and sustaining global attention on the issue of extreme poverty and its correlates in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Though, have questioned the metrics used (Vandemoortele 2002; Townsend et al 2006; Reddy and Pogge 2010) arguing that poverty estimates in many poor countries are of questionable reliability, given the quality and availability of data (Jerven 2013). In addition to this is the more fundamental issue of how poverty is conceived, defined and measured for such goals. Using empirical data from the World Bank’s Core Welfare Indicator Questionnaire (CWIQ) surveys and the DHS, we argue that the Consensual Approach has clear advantages when conceiving and defining multidimensional poverty, and that it can inform other poverty measurement frameworks—e.g. ones which use rights based approaches or Sen’s Capabilities framework
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