Reconceptualising Poverty Measurement for Sustainable Development: Review of the Literature

Abstract

At the turn of the millennium, problems of poverty measurement was reopened in development discourse as recent poverty trends in the post 2015 sustainable development goals(SDGs)agenda points to the need to re-examine some empirical and theoretical flaws in the dynamics of poverty measurement as well as  patterns of imprecision and key external and internal variables involved to determine the suitability of such measurement tools in alleviating poverty. A review of some of these measurement tools which include the World Bank’s $1-Per-Day Poverty Line, the Money-metric methods, the Income and Consumption Measures, the Asset Indicators and Deprivation method .is important. The methodology was a desk review which examined relevant existing literatures and similar secondary data on poverty measurement. Findings suggest the superficiality of existing poverty measurement tools as they predominantly emphasize material poverty and fail to identify non- monetary poverty indices such as  past historical depictions of well- being or lack of it,  spatial inequality, access to basic services, deprivation, destitution, incapacitation, alienation, exploitation, discrimination by gender or race, political instability, environmental factors, crime, violence, corruption, human rights abuses  etc. It suggests a broader reconceptualization of poverty measurement to explore new trends  and changes in incidence of poverty.

Keywords: Poverty Measurement, Inequality,  Poverty, Sustainable Development.