The resources below are from an intensive online course which took place between 22 November - 9 December 2021. The course was aimed at PhD students and academic staff from Latin America and Africa interested in poverty-relevant research, and was funded by the University of Bristol (UK), University of Cape Town (South Africa) and UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico). If you click on a particular day you will see further information, including links to videos, presentation slides and reading lists.

Course Materials

The purpose of this intensive online course is to provide a thorough technical and practical introduction to advanced quantitative poverty research methods, with a particular emphasis on multidimensional poverty theory and measurement. Upon completing the course, participants will have the knowledge and skills required to undertake poverty relevant research using cutting edge quantitative methodologies.

The course will cover both the theory and practice of poverty research and will provide a broad-based training concerning recent methodological developments in Africa, Europe and Latin America. It will show how to develop a poverty survey using quantitative methods and analyse the results as well as the advantages and disadvantages of current measurement methods. It will cover how to develop a comprehensive and effective research programme to achieve maximum impact.

Programme

Day 1: History of Poverty Measurement

• Opening Ceremony: Rolando Cordera (PUED), David Gordon (BPI) and Murray Leibbrandt (ACEIR)
• History of multidimensional poverty measurement: a global perspective (Professor David Gordon)
• History of poverty measurement in Latin America (Professor Luis Beccaria)
• Theories, definitions and measurement of poverty (Professor Fernando Cortés and Dr Héctor Nájera)

Day 2: Poverty Theory

• Relative deprivation theory (Professor David Gordon)
• Human rights and child poverty: Past, present and future of child poverty measurement (Enrique Delamonica)
• Poverty as capability deprivation (Dr Rod Hick)

Day 3: Approaches to Poverty Measurement

• Social rights and poverty measurement: A review of the ten years of the Mexican experience (Professor Fernando Cortés)
• A critical review of axiomatic approaches and multidimensional indices (Dr Curtis Huffman)
• Consensual method and relative deprivation around the globe (Dr Shailen Nandy)

Day 4: Principles for the Scientific Measurement of Poverty

• Debates on axioms, empirical scrutiny and poverty measurement (Dr Curtis Huffman and Dr Héctor Nájera)
• Reliability and poverty measurement (Dr Héctor Nájera)
• Validity and poverty measurement (Dr Héctor Nájera)

Day 5: What are the Needs of Adults and Children?

• Unsatisfied basic needs and consensual method: The experience in Buenos Aires (Ana Laura Fernandez)
• Child poverty and the consensual method (Dr Gill Main)
• Socially perceived needs across time and space (Joanna Mack)

Day 6: Computing and Analysis in R Practical Session

• How to calculate the validity and reliability of poverty measures (Dr Héctor Nájera)

Day 7: Measuring and Mapping

• Multiple malnutrition and food poverty (Dr Shailen Nandy)
• Small Area Estimation and mapping of poverty in Uganda (Dr Marco Pomati)
• Comparability of poverty estimates across social groups and over time (Dr Héctor Nájera)

Day 8: Frontiers of Poverty Measurement

• Poverty and assets, a gendered perspective (Professor Abena Oduro)
• Using AI and remote sensing for poverty measurement (Dr Adel Daoud)
• Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) (Dr Mary Zhang)

Detailed Programme

For overviews of each talk, reading lists, resources and speaker biographies, download the full programme: Advanced Poverty Research Methods Online Course - Programme (PDF, 673kB)