Speaking Notes for the Minister of Social Development, Ms Bathabile Dlamini, MP on the occasion of the Panel Discussion on Multidimensional Poverty Methodologies for effective International Development Cooperation Policies, Acapulco, Mexico
Moderator,
Fellow Panellists,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Good morning and thank you Moderator for affording us this opportunity to be part of this important session that addresses an equally important topic.
In September 2015, the UN General Assembly formally adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDGs), along with a set of 17 bold new global goals with the commitment to end poverty in all its forms and a promise to leave no one behind?
Therefore the question uppermost in our minds is how do we make better use of the existing international development cooperation agreements to indeed ensure that we leave no one behind?
To achieve this ambitious goal in the next fifteen years, we need accurate, accessible, reliable and disaggregated data to measure progress and impact of our interventions. The Paris Declaration and the Accra Agenda for Action provide a practical roadmap to improve the quality and effectiveness of international development cooperation and their impact on those they are meant to benefit.
In particular, the Paris Declaration gives a series of specific implementation measures and establishes a monitoring system to assess progress and ensure that both donors and receiving countries are accountable for development results.
The United Nations Development Programme estimates that almost 1.5 billion people in developing countries experience multidimensional poverty — that is, with at least 33 percent of the indicators reflecting acute deprivation in health, education and standard of living. If the commitment is to end poverty in all its forms and to ensure that no one is left behind, then Agenda 2030 presents a framework and a better opportunity to push forward with the adoption of the multidimensional poverty index as a tool for the measurement of international development cooperation.
The benefits is that the multidimensional poverty methodologies can be an effective tool in determining resource allocation by making possible the targeting of those with the greatest intensity of poverty and simultaneously assist to monitor the impact of policy intervention. In addition, the multidimensional poverty methodologies can be adapted by donor countries by using indicators that address their funding priorities in a specific region. Both the Paris Declaration and the Accra Agenda for Action explicitly state that the international development cooperation should focus on real and measurable impact on development.
The multidimensional poverty methodologies seeks to do exactly that by ensuring that we measure the right things at the right time as well as measure the impact of policies and interventions. There is no time than the present to advance the multidimensional poverty index agenda and I hope that we will use this forum and many others at regional levels to push it forward.
I thank you. Gracias!
