Poverty can also be measured by empowerment and the capacity to go through life without feeling ashamed

Poverty is not only the lack of material wellbeing. The absence of instruments to measure relevant aspects of the life of poor people, which touch on psychological and subjective aspects, present a challenge for the measurement of this social problem.

CAF, Development Bank of Latin America, and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) presented in Montevideo the study "Las dimensiones faltantes en la medición de la pobreza" (The missing dimensions in the measurements of poverty), which contributes six new areas to the debate on the measurement of this phenomenon: empowerment and agency; physical security; capacity to go through life without being ashamed; social connectivity; quality of employment; and psychological wellbeing. 

Ana Mercedes Botero, Director of CAF's Social Innovation Initiative, stated, "One of the great contributions of this study is its multi-dimensional approach, that starts by understanding the complex relations of psychological, social, cultural, and economic aspects in the lives of people living in poverty. This expands the vision with which the development process is evaluated, beyond material progress, visualizing factors that determine the real capacities that an individual has to make decisions and changes in his/her own life". 

The study developed by OPHI in alliance with CAF's Social Innovation Initiative, introduces new criteria and elements that may be useful for public policy makers, and a key tool to improve the design of the interventions and policies to reduce poverty, as well as the impact measurements for human development programs and projects that aim at social inclusion and the generation of capacities of the grand majority.  

To understand the aspects that people value with respect to their lives and that affect the development processes, it is important to take into consideration the capacity that they have to get along with autonomy, confidence, and self-determination; their physical security; if there is discrimination or if they feel ashamed for being poor; the income, time, protection, and working stability; interpersonal relationships; and their satisfaction with life. All these dimensions are proposed in this study. 

With respect to the characteristics of these aspects, Diego Zavaleta, coordinator of the report and researcher at OPHI highlighted these are cases with very complex dimensions, making it difficult to measure them. He stated, "Those of us who are a part of the community of researchers in economic and social sciences have the challenge of developing mechanisms that allow us to measure these types of variables adequately, as this information is a basic input to develop more reliable measurements of the scope of poverty in the different countries". 

The launching of the study "Las dimensiones faltantes en la medición de la pobreza", carried out in the framework of the VI Latin American and Caribbean Conference for the Study of Human Capacities (ALCADECA, for its acronym in Spanish), included a conversation between Ana Mercedes Botero, CAF's Director for Social innovation; Diego Zavaleta, Researcher at OPHI Oxford; and economic journalist Nicolás Lussich. They all coincided that expanding the concept and measurement of Human development to a more extensive set of areas influences the form in which a country's performance must be measured and evaluated.  

For the complete report, go to: http://scioteca.caf.com/handle/123456789/833

To read the authors' blog, go to: www.caf.com/es/visiones