Dr Sabina Alkire. Sabina is the Director of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, a research centre within the University of Oxford. She is a world leading expert on poverty and the co-developer of a method that measures poverty by considering several dimensions of people’s lived experiences at once.
Thanks to Sabina, economists and policy-makers are no longer thinking of poverty just in monetary terms. Rather, they are now also taking into account a lack of access to education, malnutrition, reliance on toxic cooking fuel, inadequate sanitation and many other indicators when they measure and ultimately address poverty. In other words, how we measure and track poverty has become more closely aligned with how poor people describe their situation, thanks to the work of Sabina and her colleagues.
This ‘multidimensional’ approach to poverty is revolutionising how countries around the world and multinational organisations like the United Nations target help and resources to improve the lives of people around the world. For her work, Sabina has been recognised with numerous prestigious prizes – most recently the Queen’s Anniversary Prize and the Boris Mints Institute prize.
If you are interested in the economics of poverty, how research can contribute to poverty reduction, and what Covid-19 has to do with all of this, then I am sure you will enjoy my conversation with Sabina.
Resources and links mentioned in this episode
- Sabina Alkire’s profile on the website of the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative
- The 2020 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI)
- Samuel Centre for Social Connectedness
- Amartia Sen in the Financial Times, April 15th 2020: A better society can emerge from the lockdowns
- Blog of the UN Office for South-South Cooperation
- Book by Jean Drèze: Sense and Solidarity
Angelika Love 