UGP: Unified Global Poverty: An Absolute and Relative Cost of Basic Needs Framework

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Poverty eradication is the flagship of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. However, official global absolute poverty estimates are based on the standard World Bank dollar-a-day approach, which falls short in the prime objective of absolute poverty measurement: tracking a constant standard of living over time and across countries. The World Bank's Commission on Global Poverty -implicitly recognizing this shortcoming- recommends the Cost of Basic Needs method, which is immune to the drawback of the standard approach.The objectives of the Unified Global Poverty project are to: (a) produce global poverty statistics via the operationalization on a global scale of an absolute poverty definition that is already internationally ratified and described in the United Nations Copenhagen Declaration (together with methodological components such as reference diets, population tailored nutritional targets, error-accounting microsimulations and linear programming, and by assembling global price series, 2000-2020); (b) unify the absolute and relative aspects of poverty within that framework, thereby avoiding the methodological discontinuity between more and less economically developed countries; (c) maximize policy relevance of global poverty statistics.Estimates of global poverty influence the priorities of (inter)national aid agencies and this research has substantial potential to better guide their funding decisions, consequently helping to improve the lives of millions. Developing this measurement framework well in advance of the Sustainable Development Goals deadline in 2030, and in combination with an intersectoral secondment alongside the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, will be crucial to maximize its impact.