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CAF- development bank of Latin America and the Caribbean and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) invite you to their event "Reimagining Poverty Solutions – seeking new ways to connect politics, measurement, and policy action in Latin America and the Caribbean".

Over the past two decades, Latin America and the Caribbean have made notable progress in reducing poverty. When measured against the upper-middle-income country poverty line of USD 6.85 per day (2017 PPP), the overall rate of income poverty in the region declined by 20 percentage points (The World Bank, 2023). Some of the poorest countries, such as Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Honduras, experienced substantial reductions in acute multidimensional poverty, with improvements observed in both the incidence and intensity of poverty (Alkire et al., 2020; Gasparini, Santos, and Tornarolli, 2021).

The significant decline in income poverty can be attributed to a combination of robust economic growth and strategic public policy measures, particularly the widespread adoption of conditional cash transfer programs (Levy, 2016). Concurrently, reductions in multidimensional poverty were achieved through sectoral policies that led to advancements across various dimensions, enabling some of the poorest nations in the region to halve their multidimensional poverty rates and achieve rapid reductions in acute poverty among the most disadvantaged groups (Santos, 2023).

Despite these successes, 181 million people in Latin America (29% of the regional population) continue to live in income poverty, and over 38 million individuals (in countries with available data) remain in acute multidimensional poverty (ECLAC, 2023; OPHI, 2023). Key areas of deprivation include access to clean cooking fuel, improved sanitation, adequate housing materials, electricity, safe drinking water, assets, nutrition, and years of schooling (Gasparini, Santos, and Tornarolli, 2021). Poverty levels in rural areas are, on average, more than eight times higher than in urban regions (OPHI, 2020). Moreover, a third of the population currently not classified as income-poor is vulnerable to falling back into poverty with a single economic shock, highlighting the precariousness of their situation (The World Bank, 2023). These findings suggest that achieving Sustainable Development Goal 1 (eradicating poverty) is at serious risk, as many of its indicators are progressing too slowly or even regressing (ECLAC, 2024).

Participants

Michelle Muschett

Assistant Secretary General, Deputy Administrator and Director of the Regional Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean, UNDP

Sergio Díaz-Granados

Executive President, CAF -Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean-

Luis Felipe López-Calva

Global Director for Poverty and Equity at the World Bank Group.

Sabina Alkire

Director, Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), University of Oxford.

Jeffrey Sachs

Director of the Sustainable Development Center, Columbia University.