Speeches

 “Support to Poverty Analysis and Monitoring Project”Living Standards Measurement 1st Capacity Building Workshop12 December 2009, le Meridien, AmmanStatement by MS. Jacinta Barrins, Country Director, United Nations Development Programme, Jordan Country Office  Your Excellency Dr. Saleh Kharabsheh, Secretary General, Ministry of Planning and International CooperationYour Excellency Dr. Haidar Freihat, Director General of the Department of StatisticsEsteemed Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am very pleased to be here with you today to launch the capacity building workshop on measuring living standards in Jordan.Welcome to you allThere is an overwhelming agreement that poverty reduction is the objective of development. Governments around the world and international aid organizations have used poverty as flagships for their development work throughout many years.  However the concept of poverty is quite controversial and poverty has been defined in a number of different ways.  Some define it as monetary deprivation; others define it as the condition of not having the means to afford basic human needs such as clean water, nutrition, health care, clothing and shelter.  Sen defined it as “the failure of some basic capability to function”. Some look at it from a societal exclusion perspective while others believe it is subjective and should be defined from the perspective of those who suffer from it. The Millennium Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) endorsed globally in 2000 confirmed the need to address poverty from multiple dimensions. The MDGs provide a global framework that looks at aspects of education and health, gender equality, sustainable resources as crucial areas for poverty eradication. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Reports in the Human Poverty Index, provide a multiple measure of poverty that combines deprivation of income, with longevity, knowledge and services shortages. It is obvious that different definitions require different measurement methodologies and lead to different results and policies. The most obvious definition is that poverty is deprivation, however deprivation of what, by how much, over what time period and whose are questions that remain to be answered. These questions are very contextual and vary from one place to another. This brings us to the purpose of the workshop today. The “Unsatisfied Basic Needs” methodology is one method that measures deprivation. It allows for a customized, country- specific definition of fields that are considered by national experts as relevant to the local situation. From this stems its importance. It provides a living standards measure that is by definition multi-dimensional and can hence inform appropriate policy.  We are proud to be here today and be involved in such an important national endeavor. We are also very pleased to have among us a national team from several institutions working on poverty reduction that would lead the national effort of introducing this methodology to Jordan.  We rely on their expertise and commitment to see this through successfully.This event is the first of several capacity development activities that are planned within the context of the project “Support to Poverty Analysis and Monitoring”. UNDP has partnered in this strategic initiative with the Department of Statistics and the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation. We see this as the start of UNDP’s longer term specific support to the government of Jordan in the area of poverty eradication measurements and policy making. It also complements our planned support to the government in the area of food security as part and parcel of poverty eradication efforts.We would like to thank our two national partners for their commitment and continued support and cooperation. We would also like to thank UN ESCWA who is our UN partner on this project for their expert support.Finally, I would like to thank you all again for attending and to wish you an enjoyable participation and a successful outcome. Thanks again