Posted: 

Honduras launches Multidimensional Poverty Index drawing on OPHI methodology

Honduras has officially launched a national Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) to help target poverty, drawing on a methodology developed by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) at ODID.

The MPI was launched on 23 August at an event at the Presidential House in Tegucigalpa attended by over 200 people from government, academia, civil society, the private sector and the international donor community.

First Lady Ana García de Hernández expressed the strong interest of the President and the government in using the new MPI-Honduras to create policies that will help fight poverty. The Ambassador to the European Union, Mr Ketril Karlsen, noted that creating the MPI-Honduras had been a two year process that the European Union had been glad to support and praised the government for launching this new, useful measure.

The goal of the measure is to improve the targeting and evaluation of public policies and help design and implement more effective policies. The MPI was built using the Alkire-Foster methodology developed at OPHI. The national MPI of Honduras consists of four dimensions (health, education, employment, and living standards) and 15 indicators.

It was developed by a Technical Commission that included members from academia, the private sector, civil society and Government. The latter was represented by the General Secretariat of Government Coordination (SCGG), the National Institute of Statistics, the Office of Development and Social Inclusion, and the Ministry of Finance. OPHI provided technical support during the process.

Honduras joins a growing list of national governments using MPIs based on the Alkire-Foster method to help tackle poverty.

Find out more.