The High-Level Panel has called for a data revolution to track progress towards international development targets. They were right to do so. But that’s not the only revolution that we need. If the international community is serious about ‘going to zero’ on poverty and other goals, we need to know what it will cost. Targets count for little if you can’t pay for them. And we also need to track the money to make sure it actually gets to where it is needed.
This week we kick off debate over how a post-2015 framework ought to measure poverty – with a blog by Martin Ravallion arguing that a new poverty target should continue to be based on a $1.25 a day poverty line alongside a ‘weakly relative’ poverty line, so that absolute poverty is given primacy but relative poverty is also taken into account.
'By looking at averages when measuring progress, we are looking at a biased view of what we have been able to achieve. Only by looking at inequitable distributions of our progress, can we really understand whether or not we are achieving progress.'
Inequality doesn’t just hurt the poorest people – it hurts whole societies, leading many to argue that tackling inequality should be at the centre of the next development framework – not on the periphery.
