About the University

Seeking a new way to tackle world poverty

One week considering how Mexico can identify its poorest citizens, next week in Beijing presenting a measure of hunger and poverty, then on to Jordan to the opening of a Human Development Programme at the University of Amman, Dr Sabina Alkire, Director of the new Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), has a world of issues to discuss. 

The goal is not merely to measure poverty, but to create a framework for research and policy that will lead to lasting poverty reduction

Launched in May, OPHI’s focus is on building and then winning consensus on a new approach to tackling poverty. Dr Alkire, an economist formerly of Harvard’s Global Equity Initiative, says: ‘What we need is a more systematic methodological and economic framework for reducing poverty. We must go beyond the measures we have now and develop an approach that is grounded in people’s experience and values.’

OPHI grew out of, and now actively supports, an initiative called the Human Development and Capability Association (HDCA). It promotes multidisciplinary research on problems related to impoverishment, justice and well-being, and has more than 700 members across 70 countries. OPHI also draws on the writings of the Nobel laureate economist and Harvard professor Amartya Sen, Founding President of the HDCA and Distinguished Fellow of All Souls.Sen’s work on human development, and his vision that sustainable economic growth must be complemented by policies that promote fairer distribution of wealth, have helped inspire the creation of the centre and its programme. Professor Sen opened the OPHI with a public lecture at the Sheldonian Theatre called ‘What Theory of Justice?’ and is one of three advisers, along with leading Oxford economists Professor Sudhir Anand and Professor Tony Atkinson, who are helping set its agenda.

Dr Sabina Alkire, Director of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative
Dr Sabina Alkire, Director of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative.

This will include developing teaching materials to meet the rising demand for training from Master’s courses, NGOs and international institutions, as a way to distil and widely communicate its work. Planning is already underway for two, two-week Master’s courses in September 2008, one to graduate students in India, and one to United Nations Development Programme and other international agency/NGO practitioners at St Catherine’s in Oxford.

OPHI’s launch also featured two research workshops. In one, Dr Alkire and James Foster, an economics professor at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, USA, proposed a new measure of multidimensional poverty that identifies acute poverty – in which a person is deprived in several ways at the same time. The other identified ‘missing dimensions’ of international poverty data – ‘dimensions of poverty that matter to poor people but are not effectively measured in the datasets’. Five new modules were proposed: safety from violence, employment, the ability to go about without shame, empowerment and psychological/subjective well-being.

Dr Alkire believes that the first four dimensions should be improved alongside traditional indicators such as consumption, nutrition and education. The challenge is to do so accurately and effectively. ‘For example,’ says Dr Alkire, ‘you often find that the available poverty data is not all from the same survey, so it is impossible to see which people are deprived in all areas at the same time and to judge who are the poorest. We need to solve that problem now.’

In future years, Dr Alkire and her colleagues will also ask the question: ‘In addition to efficiency, which other principles ought to inform poverty reduction and how?’ They will look at how to use behavioural economics to assess people’s welfare, how to model the impact of policy on people’s capabilities and how best to advance these economic ideas in different political contexts. OPHI is based within the University’s Department of International Development, Queen Elizabeth House. Working alongside the Director are two postdoctoral fellows and a project coordinator, plus a vibrant international research network. The initiative is supported by the International Development Research Centre in Canada and the UK’s Department for International Development. It works closely with university research centres in Italy (Pavia), China (Beijing) and the USA (Cambridge, MA).

Once the research findings are clear, the aim is to take OPHI’s proposals to governments and international agencies for inclusion in future studies of poverty. It is a multidisciplinary project on a truly global scale, but, Dr Alkire says, one whose Oxford base is very important. ‘We have had so much support from across the University. It is a very happy place to work.’

New appointments

Pro-Vice-Chancellor

Anthony Monaco, Director of Oxford’s Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, was appointed Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Planning and Resources). He is a Fellow of Merton College.

Clinical Anaesthetics

Henry McQuay, Professor of Pain Relief at Oxford, took up the post of Nuffi eld Professor of Clinical Anaesthetics. He remains a Fellow of Balliol College.

Campaign Chair

Dame Vivien Duffield, DBE, one of the UK’s leading philanthropists and a member of the Chancellor’s Court of Benefactors, has been appointed Chair of the University’s collegiate fundraising campaign, which is expected to be launched in spring 2008. Dame Vivien is an Honorary Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall.