Ethos Poverty Index (2011)

[joshcryer]

Despite progress made in recent years in reducing poverty in Latin America, the majority of countries in the region still have high levels of marginalization and social lag.

This scenario shows that the region continues to face serious challenges to improving the living standards of a very large sector of its population. Thus, the task of defining and quantifying poverty acquires far greater importance, as well as analyzing the root causes of this phenomenon.

Experts have pointed out on numerous occasions that in Latin America insufficient income, education, healthcare, nutrition, basic services, and housing infrastructure constitute the condition of poverty. Consequently, addressing these dimensions of wellbeing has become the basis of the majority of social government actions. Nevertheless, it has recently been shown that social contexts such as those of Latin America, characterized by fragile democracy, lack of governance and political instability, high levels of corruption, gender inequality, lack of competitiveness, insecurity, and environmental deterioration have negatively impacted the quality of life and undermined the effectiveness of antipoverty strategies.

Some arguments strengthening this idea come from prominent experts and international organizations. Amartya Sen (1999) states that by virtue of the electoral process and critical public opinion, democratic governments have greater incentive to raise the living standards of the population. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP, 1997) has indicated that good governance is achievable with population participation, accountability, and transparency. This promotes rule of law, which is conducive to improved social wellbeing. This same organization (UNDP, 2006) states that violence and insecurity are determining factors in development and poverty reduction. The poorest countries and people are those most exposed to acts of violence.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x53792">Expected.

[joshcryer]

1. Oops, I forgot the link to the PDF, here it is:

www.ethos.org.mx/docs/2011/EthosPovertyIndex2011.pdf

My bad.

[puchi]

2. You can smell the Thinks-tanks from here.

These countries progress and They can only change the indicators to prove otherwise. Why isn't Argentina on the list? What could happen if this index is applied to EEUU?

[joshcryer]

3. No, they incorporate the household poverty index with the contextual index.

If you look closely the ethos index is always in between the household and the contextual. Yes it does still wind up ranking them in order like contextual, but the ranking differences aren't as dramatic.

It's a good method since household poverty isn't normally accounted for (look at Colombia compared to say Venezuela on that chart).

The PDF is highly recommended.