Page 11 - Revista del Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo del INEI - Economía, Sociedad y Estadística N° 9

and The Caribbean, “Multidimensional progress: well-
being beyond income” (UNDP, 2016)

The “voice” of academics or “experts” has also played
a crucial role. Acknowledging the multidimensionality
of poverty in development studies goes back to, at
least, the 1970s with the emergence of the basic
needs approach proposed by the International Labor
Organization (ILO) and further developed by Streeten
et al. (1981) (Stewart, 2006). Later, the emergence
of the capability approach, based on the ideas of the
Nobel prize winner Amartya Sen (1980, 1993, 1999),
took the lead as the conceptual framework that, up to
this day, provides theoretical support for understating
development and poverty as multidimensional concepts
focused in the capability people have to lead the life
they value. Similarly, the report by the Stiglitz-Sen-
Fitoussi Commission (2009) on the measurement of
Social Progress highlighted the importance of taking
into account a multidimensional approach that includes
aspects complementary to income when evaluating
quality of life . A similar approach was adopted by
1
the Atkinson report on global poverty (WB, 2017),
which explicitly emphasizes the need for measuring
poverty in a multidimensional way. This motivated
the inclusion of a multidimensional poverty measure
to the group of indicators used by the World Bank as
complementary measures to the global extreme poverty
indicator based on the 1.90 USD a day poverty line (WB,
2018). Likewise, a significant group of independent
scientists appointed by the United Nations Secretariat
have defined as one of the “calls to action” on the 2019
Sustainable Development Goal Report to “measure
poverty in multiple dimension based on a country level
understanding of poverty […] and use those measures to
shape the development planning process and promote
coordination among ministries” (Independent Group
of Scientists appointed by the Secretary-General 2019:
127).

1 Specifically, the report suggests taking into account the following aspects: 1) material living standards, 2) health, 3) education, 4)
personal activities including work, 5) political voice and governance, 6) social connections and relationships, 7) environment and
8) economic and physical insecurity. (2009: 14-15).

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