The Evolution of How Countries in the Americas Understand and Fight Poverty

Increasingly, the social development agenda and the public policies and solutions designed to combat poverty are expanding the definition and measurement of poverty, by incorporating new elements to traditional measures based on income. Today, governments recognize that eradicating poverty and achieving equity requires a multidimensional and inter-sectoral approach realized through the articulation of different sectors and attention to different aspects of poverty.

A clear example of this new focus is the Plan of Action of the Social Charter of the Americas, unanimously ratified at the 45th General Assembly of the OAS in June.    The Plan, not only reflects the regional consensus on the importance of eradicating poverty, but its proposed 7 strategic lines of action --labor, social protection, health, food and nutrition, education, housing and basic public services, and culture-- are an irrefutable recognition that fighting poverty requires actions in different areas to address its multidimensional nature.

This approach is not new to the region. Back in 2010, when the Second Meeting of Ministers and High Authorities of Social Development was held, the social authorities of the member states of the OAS recognized that "poverty and inequality are multidimensional phenomena that require intersectoral and coordinated interventions in the framework of a national social development strategy."[1]

In this regard, the OAS-SEDI, through its Inter-American Social Protection Network (IASPN), is uniquely positioned as a strategic tool to continue to provide a space for the exchange of experiences and knowledge on social protection. Recently, and responding to regional trends, the IASPN identified the multidimensional approach to poverty, and particularly the tools to measure poverty as priority areas of ​​work. In this regard, and in collaboration with Governments and specialized agencies, the IASPN has conducted a series of workshops (2014, 2013), a diploma course (in Spanish), and published a compendium of experiences on Multidimensional Poverty Indexes (MPI).

An ally of the OAS in this effort has been the Government of Colombia, which through its Department for Social Prosperity (DPS) has become a regional leader in the implementation of MPIs. During the month of June, the DPS, in collaboration with the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI) at the University of Oxford, organized the Third Annual Meeting of the Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network (MPPN), attended by representatives of 22 countries and 10 international organizations, including the OAS.

At the inauguration of the event in Cartagena, the President of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos said that "poverty has many faces and we must address each of these faces." In addition, the President emphasized that "The MPI is a compass that guides our actions" and that "by having many entities push together towards the same objective, we have achieved a lot." In effect, Colombia has achieved a remarkable reduction in multidimensional poverty, going from 30.4% to 21.9% in four years.

Referring to a series of initiatives undertaken by the Government of Colombia to support South-South cooperation on MPIs, President Santos highlighted the joint activity of Colombia and the OAS in September 2014, with the collaboration of OPHI, to share the experience of the country’s MPI with its Latin American neighbors.

The experience and the working tools that the OAS has made available to countries through the IASPN during the last 5 years take on greater importance today, as the region seeks to reinforce experience sharing and cooperation on social protection and the fight against multidimensional poverty. Without a doubt, the Organization is bound to have a strategic role in supporting Member States to implement one of the main documents emanating from the 2015 General Assembly, the Plan of Action of the Social Charter of the Americas.