New Poverty Patterns: Where Will the Poor Live?

New data on the changing patterns of poverty, and how to handle it

The shift in the geography of poverty comes with other important changes: pockets of fragility within otherwise stable environments and exclusion within contexts of general prosperity.*

Tailor-made solutions (i.e. pro-poor policies) for each national context, avoiding one-size-fits-all approaches.**

Policy implications of shifting poverty patterns, among others:

• set the international poverty line at around USD 10/day (which would reveal that 10% of the global poor live in high income countries),
• focus on the multidimensionality of poverty,
• agree on a multidimensional indicator for poverty (for example, the Multidimensional Poverty Index [MPI] developed by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Index [OPHI]) and change the country classifications accordingly.***

*Institute of Development Studies (IDS)

**Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)

*** News and Ideas from the OECD Development Assistance Committee, July 2012 New poverty patterns: Where will the poor live?