Integrated policies to Reduce Poverty in its Many Dimensions

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This research project addresses the overarching research question: What factors shape pathways into and out of poverty and people's experience of these, and how can policy create sustained routes out of extreme poverty in ways that can be replicated and scaled up? We use the Alkire-Foster or AF (2011) method, in two very new and policy-relevant ways. The AF method first observes which deprivations each person experiences. It identifies people as multidimensionally poor based on the percentage of deprivations they have, then builds a rigorous but simple measure. 1. Repeated cross-sectional AF measures now exist for a large number of countries to analyse the trends and drivers of extreme multidimensional poverty-at both the individual and group level. Poverty levels and trends will be disaggregated by ethnicity, regions, caste, religion, age group, and the drivers of change will be analysed. At the macro level we will study pathways out of poverty related to public expenditure, growth, inequality, governance, policy integration, and other variables. Because ethnic and religious groups are often among the poorest of the poor, we will look up close at poverty of these different groups, to see if a general reduction in poverty included them--or left them behind. At the micro level we will check whether households without an empowered woman seem to have been left behind more often. We will then be able to analyse whether and in what circumstances settings with 'integrated policies' go along with high rates of poverty reduction, or more equalizing trends across social groups. Doing this research requires us to construct, first of all, an innovative, high quality, and large set of poverty statistics ('databank). We anticipate that this data bank will include data on sixty countries, including over 30 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, plus 13 of the 15 poorest countries in South Asia, East Asia and the Pacific, and Latin America. We should have disaggregated data down to the subnational level for about three-quarters of the countries. The final dataset with its associated statistics will be made publically available, and will provide the basis for the proposed micro and macro-econometric analyses to be undertaken in this research.2. We aim to evaluate what policies have been effective in enabling the poor to escape multiple interconnected dimensions of poverty. We will undertake two country case studies (probably Nepal and Senegal), working closely with government members of the Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network. Through extensive qualitative interviews with policy leaders and analysts, we will undertake a study of integrated policy interventions and their effectiveness in reducing poverty in several dimensions. These studies provide the project with more localized, contextualized insights that impact project outputs and poverty reduction policies. This research will prove invaluable to other countries wishing to design integrated policies to reduce multidimensional poverty.We will also design and test a new multidimensional methodology for formal impact evaluation. This innovative approach to impact evaluation will enable research users to evaluate programmes and certain policies using a multidimensional lens. This will provide a new tool to pinpoint what kinds of integrated policies better enable the poor to leave and stay out of several dimensions of poverty at the same time. The use of multidimensional outcome measures in RCTs could alter the RCT landscape. An objective of this research is to focus on the possible policy uptake of lessons learned and research findings. Our experience with the country members of the MPPN, a network of 37 countries for which OPHI acts a Secretariat, shows us that involving these governments as partners from the very beginning is essential to insure research uptake. Also essential are effective and proactive communications strategies to reach strategic audie