Today’s meeting gave powerful, new voices a platform to discuss their innovative and progressive ideas centred on the eradication of poverty.

Day One of the High Level Political Forum at the United Nations touched on how The Sustainable Development Goals take an inclusive, multidimensional approach to poverty that has never been seen in an UN agenda before.

Desperate times call for ground-breaking measures…

Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) is the proposed new measurement of poverty, world wide. Wealth is redefined as amount of education, health care, social inclusiveness, violence, deprivation an individual receives, as well as monetary measures of income. This new mode of measuring trends is the radical change the world needs in order to really fulfil the objective of “leaving no one behind”.

With Columbia being one of the first nations to implement MPI into governmental policy, they spoke fondly of the improvements their country has experienced since they have been able to monitor and deeply understand the nature of their poverty crisis, and the drivers for their poverty. MPI allowed for Columbia to make informed decisions on the designation of resources and the detection of dangerous trends.

This more refined data is essential to the overall wellbeing of vulnerable peoples, specifically children. UNICEF spoke about the necessity for this generation of children in need to be prioritised if we aim for the eradication of poverty for the next generation. The reward for investing in today’s children far outweighs the initial cost of investment.

Ultimately this conference shone light on the importance of REDEFINING POVERTY.

Much of aging population are deprived of social inclusion, some middle class families are deprived of decent education, many women are deprived of employment opportunities, some rural residents are deprived of clean water. These are all forms of poverty, unrelated to income.

Much like the SDGs themselves, this new approach to poverty is inclusive, interconnected and multifaceted. We are excited to see a brand new methodology, as change is the key to progress.