OPHIOxford Poverty & Human Development InitiativeDepartment of International DevelopmentQueen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford www.ophi.org.uk

OPHI: Our people, purpose & activities

Who we are: structure

Advisors: Sudhir Anand, Tony Atkinson, Amartya Sen

Management Committee: Valpy FitzGerald, Ian Goldin, John Hammock, Barbara Harriss-White

Institutional location: A research centre within the Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford.

Who we are: people

Full Time Staff: 7 Director + 4 post-docsProject CoordinatorResearch Communication OfficerOthers:Part-time Communications supportResearch Assistants & Students Visiting Students & Fellows, Research

Associates,Collaborators, Volunteers, Supporters

Our priorities

– academic rigor– practicality and policy relevance

– engagement with economics– engagement of southern researchers

– co-ordination of research– collegial relationships– economics of well-being

OPHI’s current research

• Missing Dimensions – Developing short modules for

internationally comparable household surveys.

• Multidimensional (Poverty) Comparisons– Developing new methodologies to

measure and analyse multidimensional poverty

– Applying these to regions, countries, and sectors

Missing Dimensions

of Poverty data

How can OPHI catalyze a process so more and better data are

available?

The Problem of Missing Data• Amartya Sen argues that development

is the process of expanding the freedoms that people value and have reason to value.

• A critical bottleneck for empirical studies is the following: in key dimensions, internationally comparable data are missing.

• Creating more and better data is an investment in our future ability to understand and reduce poverty as poor people see it.

Goal: to see key variables side by side

So we know who is deprived in what.

Dimensions(and indicators for each D)

Health Educat’n

Income Physical Safety

Employ-ment

Empowerment

Individual 1 ND D ND D D D

Individual 2 ND ND D ND D ND

Individual 3 D D D ND ND ND

Individual 4 D D D D D D

MISS

ING

DATA

Missing Dimensions of Poverty Data:

• Employment deprivation: oppressive, insecure and unsafe work

• Empowerment deprivation: acting under force or compulsion

• Physical safety; deprivation: victim of violence or lethal violence

• Ability to go about without shame: deprivation: being stigmatized, humiliated, isolated

• Meaning & satisfaction: deprivation: alienation, unhappiness, dissatisfaction

Key Activities• Piloted in Kenya, South Africa, Mexico,

Philippines, China, Pakistan, Ecuador, Bolivia & the Czech Republic.

• Nationally representative sample in Chile completed.

• Small studies in Chad, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Bolivia, Tanzania, Latin America

• Preparing provincially representative survey in China

• Preparing nationally representative survey in Chad (tbc)

• Shared in S Africa, Korea, and other statistics meetings.

• Policy Workshops held in China and Uruguay

Our Aim: Next 2-3 years• Complete 2-3 nationally representative

surveys, to validate our modules in different contexts.

• Identify champion country statistics offices, who will gather and use these data. Their voice can help to create Demand for data & policy analysis.

• Finalize, Launch, and Advocate optional modules in international surveys – and a set of key publications. These are needed to create the Supply and use of data.

Multidimensional (Poverty)

Comparisons

How can OPHI generate rigorous and user-friendly methodologies to

measure and analyse multidimensional poverty and well-

being?

Key Areas of Work• AF methodology and further elaborations

(std error etc)• Empirical applications related to AF

(country studies, applications to other topics, time series and panel data)

• MPI calculations 2010 and 2011; decompositions and dynamic analyses 2011; environmental analysis.

• Other measures – of chronic poverty, welfare, multidimensional poverty, inequality of opportunity

• Work on Dominance and Robustness of multidimensional poverty & welfare measures

Our Aim: Next 2-3 years• Consolidate work on AF methodology in a

textbook

• Focus on multidimensional poverty dynamics, weights, and links to welfare

• Continue to deepen work with global MPI and national applications; develop an international MPI for less poor countries.

• UK March 2011: UNDP course for policy makers on measurement– 44 people from 33 countries

• Chile December 2010: Spanish summer school– 35+ from 9 countries

• Jordan September 2010: Summer school– 36 people from 24 countries

• Peru September 2009: Summer school– 38 people from 21 countries

• India September 2008: Summer school– 37 people from 22 countries

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Two-week intensive courses on

measurement

• Research workshops (1-2 per year) of 25 international experts on a narrowly defined topic.

• Working Papers published online (42 to date)

• Academic Publications in Journals, Special Issues, Books, etc

• Weekly Seminars in the University of Oxford

• Presentations at academic conferences internationally

• Teaching and Supervision of graduate students

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Academic Activities

Launched in 2007, OPHI’s objective is to advance the human development approach to poverty reduction through fundamental, sustained, and multidisciplinary research that is effectively disseminated.

Thank you from the OPHI team!