Beyond 2030: Renewing the Global Commitment to End Poverty in All its Dimensions

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Excellencies, distinguished panelists, friends, warm greetings to this high-level side event, Beyond 2030, renewing the global commitment to end poverty in all its dimensions. I'm Sabine Alkire from the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative in the University of Oxford, and I'm pleased to co-moderate this event with Adriana Conconi, Director of the Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network. Friends, as the UN Secretary General said in the opening of this 81st UNGA, the global problem solving system is more crucial than ever. Yes, whatever comes to pass, whether our days be peaceful or strife-ridden, whether AI finds a cure for cancer and heartbreak or goes rogue, whether elections are manipulated or lift up the voice and wisdom of the people, whatever eventuates, Poverty will remain a priority. Human beings will require food, water, kitchens, electricity, and jobs. Children's minds require education and protein. In this world, so vastly different from 2015, preventing and addressing poverty in all its forms with dignity and determination must remain at the center of the global agenda. Speakers in this session will mention the Multidimensional Poverty Index, or MPI. MPIs start by building a deprivation score for each person, showing their real-time deprivations in areas like health and nutrition, education, jobs, security, connectivity, housing, and other SDGs. any household with a critical mass of deprivations at the same time is identified as poor. So the MPI shows who is poor, child or adult, north or south, rural or urban, and also how they are poor, indicator by interconnected indicator. Over 55 countries publish official national MPIs as SDG 1.2.2 and use them to inform national plans, social protection, budgets, targeting, and coordination. The number is growing and we salute Jamaica, Mauritius, Philippines and Sudan, which now have official MPIs. The co-author of this methodology, Professor James Foster, joins us attending this event. Our session has an exhilarating bill of speakers. To enable us to absorb the symphony of ideas, the timekeeper, Jamie Coates, will raise a yellow card one minute before time is up and a read at time. The speeches fulfill the length of the session with nothing to spare. To the panelists, I look forward greatly to your insights, and I beseech you to share them succinctly. Now I turn with great affection and expectation to His Excellency Tshering Tobgay, the Prime Minister of Bhutan, who will open this auspicious event as its creator and co-host. Dasho Tshering Tobgay is, as you will soon experience, a leader with humor and passion, power and presence, yet true sincerity and arrow-sharp awareness of others, and especially of the most fragile. Your Excellency, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Sabina. When it comes to poverty, there's no room for humor. When it comes to poverty, there's no room for jokes. Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. When a family is poor, deprivations rarely arrive alone. A child may be out of school. Her mother may lack access to healthcare. The family may have electricity but no reliable water. A young person may have a diploma, but not decent work. And a family, a family that has finally escaped poverty, may still be one illness, one natural disaster, or one economic shock away from falling back into it. That is how, that is why How we define poverty matters. Because what we measure determines what we see. And what governments see determines what governments do. So as we look beyond 2030, the question is not simply how many are poor. It is, are we seeing poverty clearly enough to end it? The 2025 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index identifies 1.1 billion people across 109 countries living in acute multidimensional poverty. More than half of them are children. About 8 in 10 live in areas exposed to extreme heat, droughts, floods or air pollution. And many face several of these hazards at the same time. This is poverty compounded by overlapping vulnerability. The poor are not simply those with less. They are often those with the fewest buffers against shocks. We need to understand the hardships people suffer today and the risks that push them into poverty or deeper into it tomorrow. Income matters. Of course, income matters. But income alone cannot tell us whether a child is in school, whether a family has clean water, whether healthcare is accessible, whether a road connects a village to opportunities. Income gives us one lens. Multi-dimensional poverty gives us another. We need both. Both lenses. Bhutan has learned this very clearly. In 2022, our monetary poverty rate was 12.4%. Our moderate multi-dimensional poverty index put the figure at 17.8%. only 4.7% of our people were poor by both measures. That is not a contradiction. It is a lesson. If we looked only at monetary poverty, we would miss people. If we looked only at multidimensional poverty, we would miss others. Each measure reveals something the other cannot. and we cannot reach those we do not see. There is another lesson from Bhutan. Success changes the question. Between 2010 and 2022, our acute multidimensional poverty rate fell from 12.6% to 2.1%. So we raised the bar. We developed a moderate MPI to reflect the standard of life our society now reasonably expects, not merely the absence of the most acute deprivation. That means looking at reliable water and electricity, access to roads, technology and healthcare, and whether children are attending school and progressing through school. As societies progress, people's legitimate aspirations progress too. Our measures must evolve as our societies evolve. But the value of an index is never the index itself. Its value is what changes because of it. In Bhutan, multidimensional poverty data has helped guide the allocation of public resources. identify communities and households needing support, and shape development planning. It is also informing our work on social protection and livelihoods. These are not just numbers in reports. They influence decisions. They influence budgets. They influence lives. So what should all this mean beyond 2030? I would offer four propositions. First, the eradication of poverty in all its forms must remain at the heart of the global development agenda. We need both monetary and multidimensional measures of poverty. Neither gives us the full picture alone. Second, We must move from national averages to people and places. National averages matter, but averages can hide people, can hide a remote village, a struggling neighborhood, a family, a child. If "leave no one behind" is to be more than a promise, we must know who is being left behind, where they are, and why they are being left behind. and we must know whether our policies are actually reaching them. Third, we must measure vulnerability and resilience. As we look beyond 2030, we cannot ask only who is poor today. We must also ask who is at risk of becoming poor tomorrow. A family may have escaped poverty, but what happens when the crops fail, when a flood destroys the road, when the breadwinner falls ill, when an economic shock destroys a job. If one shock can erase years of progress, that family may no longer be poor, but that family is not yet secure. So Poverty policy must become more than a response to deprivation. It must also become a defence against vulnerability. We must see vulnerability before it becomes poverty. And we must act on what we see, not wait until people have lost the progress they have worked so hard to make. Fourth. People experiencing poverty must help shape the response. They cannot simply be subjects of our measurements. They must have a voice in defining the problems and designing the solutions. Data can tell us a great deal, but data cannot tell us everything. If measures are our eyes, the voices of people living in poverty must be our guide. For Bhutan, all of this comes back to a question we have been asking for decades: What is development for? Our answer has never been economic growth alone. Growth matters, jobs matter, income matters, but they are the means. The end is the well-being of the people. That is why Gross National Happiness and multidimensional poverty measurement belong in the same conversation. Gross National Happiness tells us what development is for. The multidimensional poverty index helps us see where deprivation still stands in its way. Our ambition, therefore, cannot end at the poverty line. It must extend to the life people can build beyond it. That is what building a society around well-being means. And that is the shared purpose behind Bhutan's commitment to this network, to ESCAP, and to the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, a commitment we renew here today. Your Excellencies, We cannot reach those we do not see. Our task beyond 2030 is to see poverty in all its dimensions, recognise the people behind the numbers, and identify vulnerability before it becomes deprivation. But seeing is not enough. We must act on what we see. The next development agenda must do more than count progress, it must protect progress, because the true measure of development is not simply how many people cross the poverty line. It is whether they can stay beyond it, whether they can withstand the next shock, whether they can seize the next opportunity, and ultimately, whether they have the resilience and the capability to live with dignity. not merely to escape poverty, but to live well. That is the world we should build beyond 2030. Thank you and Tashi Delek.

Thank you so much. Tshering Tobgay shared First of all, a global perspective, then gave insights into how Bhutan used its high resolution MPI and monetary poverty measures to achieve lightning fast reduction, and then raised the bar and continued to use them in budgeting and social protection, and how they complement the famous Gross National Happiness work and index. And he challenged us to prevent as well as address poverty without sacrificing profundity. A tall order, yet one which the Beyond GDP process, which includes the Global MPI and seeks a headline measure, invites us to continue. We are so grateful for your voice and leadership. I'm now delighted to turn to the other co-host of this event, Ibu Armida Salsiah Al-Shabana. economics professor, former Minister of National Planning in Indonesia, and now Executive Secretary of ESCAP and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations. Ibu Armida is a leader who has consistently emphasized integrated solutions to poverty, vulnerability, and sustainability across the Asia-Pacific region. You have the floor.

Thank you very much, Sabina. A very good afternoon and welcome, a warm welcome to all distinguished participants, colleagues, and friends. May I first of all recognize the presence as well as the leadership of His Excellency Prime Minister Shering Tobgay, His Excellency Juan Manuel Santos, as well as former President of Colombia and Chair of the Elders, His Excellency President Ramos-Horta, Excellencies, distinguished speakers, and colleagues and friends. Let me start by giving overview of our region, Asia-Pacific. Countries across Asia and the Pacific have made remarkable progress strides over the past three decades in tackling poverty through a combination of economic growth, government-led programs, as well as community-based initiatives. Across the region, countries are showing that evidence-based policies and multidimensional approaches can transform lives and expand opportunities. In this case, investments in universal health coverage, nutrition, education, employment support, care system, and community-led development are improving lives and expanding opportunities for those at risk of being left behind. These actions have helped the region to record one of the most significant success stories in modern history. Extreme monetary poverty, one measure of poverty, the reality for roughly half of the region's population in 1990, fell to just 4% in 2024, lifting hundreds of millions of people out of acute deprivation. Yet this headline figure masks a significant reality. When we consider what a dignified life actually costs through national poverty lines and respective levels of development, more than 1.1 billion people in our region live in poverty in 2026, that is this year, and many more remain only one shock away from falling into poverty. At the same time, our understanding of poverty has evolved considerably. We now recognize that poverty is much more than lack of money. It encompasses deprivation in nutrition, health, education, employment, as well as overall living standards. This broader understanding has enabled governments to identify people who might otherwise remain invisible and to design more effective integrated responses. So therefore, if we refer to this global MPI, nearly still quite a sizable number of 500 million people are multidimensionally poor in our region, Asia Pacific, while 660 million are considered vulnerable to multidimensional poverty. This data provide an important roadmap for action because they now show which deprivation need to be addressed and where. We are currently doing analysis that illustrate the value of combining multidimensional poverty analysis with our methodology of leaving no one behind. Together, these approaches help governments understand not only who is poor, but who is left further behind and where. They reveal how Multiple disadvantages intersect in different national contexts and offer practical guidance for designing targeted as well as integrated policy responses. Integrated investment in human capital, decent work and social protection, as well as the solidarity economy underpinned by gender responsive, disability inclusive and age sensitive policies are key anchors of One Agenda empowering people and eradicating poverty across our region. While many countries may not fully eradicate poverty in all its forms by 2030, we should not view this as a failure of ambition, but rather it reinforces the need to renew and strengthen our commitment beyond 2030. The next generation of development efforts must build on what we have learned, that poverty is multidimensional, that solutions must be integrated, and that evidence matters. So in closing, again, if we look at what we've experienced, especially for countries in our region, Our region has already demonstrated that poverty reduction at scale is possible. And looking beyond 2030, our challenge is to apply these proven approaches more consistently, more inclusively, and more boldly so that every person can live with dignity. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Ibu Armida, for your concise and detailed overview of Asia's trajectory of poverty and its reduction, and your call going forward to retain this focus, recognizing what has been learned, that poverty is multidimensional and monetary, that investments and solutions must be integrated, and that evidence, solidarity, and boldness alike are required. We look forward to ESCAP's flagship social outlook on poverty this year. May I also take this opportunity to thank on all of our behalf the amazing teams in the permanent mission of Bhutan and ESCAP for their dignified, prompt, professional, courteous, and farsighted organization of this event. The MPPN have been grateful to organize side events at UNGA since 2013, and the co-host teams this year have been truly exceptional. Thank you. I now turn to yet another inspirational figure, His Excellency Jose Ramos-Horta, President of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. President Ramos-Horta has devoted his life to peace, human dignity, and nation building, and we are honored to hear his reflections.

Thank you. It's a pleasure to join in this forum. I begin by sharing with you some data, facts about my country, where we were 25 years ago and where we are today. On midnight, 20 May 2002, the UN flag came down, the flag of Timor-Leste went up. Ceremony was witnessed by Secretary General of UN, by the President of Indonesia, the departing government country, the Prime Minister, President of Portugal, and all other regional and foreign dignitaries. What did we receive as leaders of the country? A legacy of 24 years of violence, of extreme poverty. The cities around the country had been obliterated, burned down in the violence that followed the referendum. There were, for the whole country, 19 medical doctors, one university with 3,000 students, Life expectancy was less than 60. Electricity was barely in the capital. One PhD, Timor is with a PhD. No connectivity, telephone, let alone digitalization, artificial intelligence that was unknown then. 25 years we will celebrate next year. And what is the data? We have 1,400 medical doctors when we had 19, 20, 21 in 2002. Life expectancy in 2002 at independence was below 60, now average about 70. life expectancy. 18 universities, 210 PhDs. Our universities began to issue PhD programs only some years ago. Obviously, they proceeded cautiously, building the institution. Connectivity, electricity, that then covered only part of the city, now 100% of the territory, electricity. Connectivity, we have obviously Starlink like everybody else. We didn't have a submarine cable connecting us to Australia and Indonesia or Singapore. Now we do have it. And We met all the milestones, we achieved all the milestones necessary to be a member of ASEAN. 26 October, a year ago, we joined ASEAN as the 11th member. It was a long journey to fulfill all the difficult conditions. Three criteria, three pillars, security, social and culture, and economics. Today, the country is at peace. We have zero political violence. We have zero ethnic or religious-based tensions, zero tensions. We don't have organized crime as such, local, but yes, country is vulnerable and an attraction for organized crime from the region, our neighbors. So this is in a nutshell what we were and what we are today. But persistent extreme poverty, including child malnutrition, And I travel constantly around the country, and sometimes I'm surprised throughout the country I see a lot of cattle, buffaloes, cows, pigs, goats by the thousands. And yet we still have extreme poverty. When I ask the farmers, cattle owners, why don't you sell the cattle? They say transportation is very expensive. Market access, very difficult. We have embarked over the years, hundreds of millions of dollars, our own funding, not from donors. We have a sovereign fund. from petroleum and gas exports, we created a sovereign fund that, A, we invest the sovereign fund in equity market, initially all in US treasury bonds, we still have 60% in US treasury bonds, 40% in the equity market, that returned to us average $1 plus billion a year. in our very wise strategic investments. It is with that that we invest in education, in health, electricity, connectivity, and all of that. In terms of international ODA, extremely limited impact. When you ask 20 years ago, I asked Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan, how much of the ODA reached the country. He said 10%. How much of the ODA reached Timor-Leste? 30%. And that's already good. Then one day, I heard donors claim that $10 billion had been allocated to Timor-Leste after the violence in '99. Then I said, yes, maybe. You allocated $10 billion to Timor-Leste, but you spend it on Timor-Leste, not in Timor-Leste. That is the failure of ODA. And then the OECD countries blame the recipient countries. No, wrong policies, wrong priorities. You spend too much on yourself, on expert, study after study, and even the UN system. One day, me, president of my country, I receive in my office a UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty. I say, excuse me, do I need a UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty to come from New York to Timor-Leste to tell me about poverty in Timor-Leste. How much money did you spend on your trip? So that's one aspect of the failure of the international community in addressing, helping addressing extreme poverty. And of course, it's not enough to have a cattle. Of course, it's not enough to have abundance of forest. We do have abundance of forest. In some areas, water, when it was raining heavily, forests are compact, green. But also there is culture, there is tradition. A Timorese family with plenty of cattle, they don't kill it. Not only because of the difficulties of market access, but when I ask, well, not as I witnessed, we can spend, a family can spend five buffaloes 10 buffaloes over a period of few days to honor someone who passed away, a family. That is very profoundly cultural. But a birth of a baby, it is not that celebrated. A wedding, yes, can last forever. Plenty of cattle are killed to feed everybody. hundreds of thousands of, so this is part of that we try to change somehow. And the country literally produce everything, vegetables, fruit, so, and yet we have malnutrition, we have extreme poverty. Thank you. The fight goes on, yes, we have indicators I mentioned already. significant improvement, but there is still an unacceptable high level of child malnutrition, stunting, and so on. So these are my remarks. And when I, at independence, I was at the time foreign minister, Muhammad Yunus was not yet a Nobel Peace Prize I invited him to come to Timor-Leste. He came in 2003 or '04 and set up the first microcredit program in Timor-Leste. That's what we began, the grassroots approach to-- with the communities to address challenges of poverty. It continues. I thank you for the.

Thank you, Your Excellency, for your passion and ongoing leadership through so many decades, keeping peace and poverty and nutrition very much in the fore. And with effect, according to a global measure of poverty, during His Excellency's first term as president, Timor-Leste started a surge of poverty reduction and reduced poverty the sixth fastest of 167 country spells. And thank you for reminding us about the need for the bottom up, not the experts coming in, but for the energies and the insights from the ground up, just like the Prime Minister of Bhutan. I'm now delighted to turn to a renowned world leader on the stage, be it of peace, climate, or poverty reduction, President Juan Manuel Santos, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, chair of the Elders, former president of Colombia, and co-founder of this multidimensional poverty peer network. Under his leadership, Colombia pioneered the use of their national MPI as an instrument of government and incorporated it into development plans, budgeting, targeting. and Oxford University Press published a book by Professor Santos showing how his government used poverty metrics in what he termed the only war worth waging, the war or the battle against poverty. We are truly honored to welcome you.

Thank you, Sabina, and good afternoon to you all. I will skip the protocol to save time. And I would like to start with an anecdote. Back in 2010, when I was elected president, two very young, energetic ladies from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs came to me with a smile and asked me if I wanted to be a world leader, a real world leader. And I said, of course. And I saw that they were manipulating me. And I said, what do you want? I said, we have an idea. The Millennium Goals will expire in 2015. We need to renegotiate them, but we have to change them and introduce the rich countries, make them responsible, and introduce the environmental aspect of development. What do you think of the idea? I said, I think it's a great idea. You have my green light. And they started, with my Minister of Foreign Affairs, a multilateral diplomacy, country by country, a process that ended in September 25, 2015. On that date, In a special session with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and other heads of state and government, the General Assembly adopted, without a single abstention, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, its 17 goals, 169 economic, social, and environmental targets. The first goal is ending poverty in all its form, including multidimensional poverty. And the foundational document recognizes that ending poverty as the greatest global challenge and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development. I was invited to speak at the 2015 inaugural session of the United Nations Summit on Sustainable Development here. And I celebrated this historic step saying, these goals are also necessary conditions for building peace. In turn, peace will have a very high dividend precisely in economic, social, and environmental terms. It will be a virtuous circle. Unfortunately, 11 years later, this virtuous circle is in trouble. Conflict and divisions are weakening international cooperation. Against all logic and against common sense, The world continues to spend trillions of dollars on war while drastically cutting down the resources for development. And poverty, which could be a strategic entry point for unity, has become a victim. Poverty denies what my mentor, Amartya Sen, calls intrinsically valuable capabilities to men, women, and children in health, education, work, housing, and monetary terms. Yet neglect of poverty is not just an ethical problem. It has other vicious consequences. Poor people may be recruited destabilizing nations. They are also worse hit by climate disasters. UNDP and OPHI found that 40% of MPI poor people globally live in conflict-affected nations, and over 80% are affected by one or more climate hazards. The other side, the flip side is that addressing poverty unlocks a virtuous cycle. That happened in Colombia. And I will tell you a very short anecdote on that. 1974, I was a student at the London School of Economics. And I had a marvelous professor called Amartya Sen. And I followed him, his teachings and his writings. I never saw him again after he was my teacher until 2010, 36 years later. I called him when I was elected president and I said, "Professor Sen, this is your former student, and I would like to apply your theories in fighting poverty in my country." And he was surprised, very pleased, and sent a delegation of Oxford, of OPHI, Savina, and we started implementing the Multidimensional Poverty Index. And by implementing the MPI, not only at a national level, but also at a state level, at a municipal level, we obtain the best social and economic results in many, many years, decades, and not only in my country, in the whole of the region. The MPI helped us focus the scarce, always scarce social resources we had, and we focused them where they were most effective. And coordination, both among ministries and with governors and mayors, was one of the keys to success, to build peace, we must address poverty too. We must realize that. Reducing poverty certainly helped us in my country to generate the proper conditions to achieve peace, to end more than 50 years of war. I am presently chair of the Elders, the group of leaders that was founded by Nelson Mandela. And we call on world leaders to step up and respond to existential threats facing humanity, the climate change, pandemics, nuclear weapons, and the potential dangers of artificial intelligence. In a time of high debt and inflation, aid cuts and downsizing, it can be easy to forget that in the real world, the consequences of poverty, conflict, and climate clearly, clearly converge. We need to renew our commitment to confront poverty. And how do we do that? OPHI calls for multidimensional and monetary poverty trends to be measured in two new ways going forward. absolute, which show the share of the population who left poverty, where Africa leads the world, and in the number of poor people who leave poverty, where Asia excels. These metrics could unlock political energy because progress in the poorest places, as well as in the less poor, no matter if it's a large country or a small country, would all be recognized and applauded, which is what leaders like to hear. Poverty remains one to the greatest global challenges. Applying policies that can guarantee food to starving families, textbooks to children in schools, decent housing conditions, or access to health care and basic public services for the poor must again become a global ambition and create the unity and resolve that today's world urgently needs. Thank you.

Thank you very much, President Santos. Your trained politician's eye fashioned the SDGs and saw how our world-weary leaders require incentives and common ground. Your journalist's imagination grasped that new metrics that recognize the reduction of poverty in the poorest places and the number of people who step out of poverty can provide and unlock political energy. And your curious mind, long steeped in Amartya Sen's work with his humanity and precision, saw how rolling back poverty anew can create the common ground we so need to face these existential threats. I know of few minds that can navigate power comfortably and realistically and adeptly while maintaining grounded in human values. And so I'm very grateful for your presence and your voice. Thank you. We now will turn to Guatemala in Central America. We will return to Nepal later on in this session. And so I'm grateful for a speaker whose background spans in security, public finance, and national leadership. And I'm delighted to invite Carlos Antonio Mendez Alvarado, the Secretary of Planning and Programming of the Presidency of Guatemala to address us.

Thank you very much. Excellencies, distinguished guests, colleagues, and friends, thank you for inviting me to share Guatemala's experience. With four years left until 2030, Guatemala has made poverty and malnutrition two of our main national priorities. But let me start with a simple point. Guatemala does not lack information about poverty. We have measured it for more than two decades. We know where it is concentrated, and yet the needle has barely moved. Poverty in Guatemala has a clear historical and territorial pattern. The areas with highest poverty are also areas with a high concentration of indigenous population. Indigenous people which are more than 42% of the population, have faced historical and structural exclusion from basic services and economic opportunities. And when this exclusion continues from one generation to the next, it also drives migration. Our 2018 census shows this clearly. Many migrants are young rural men, including many from Maya communities. So our challenge is not simply to measure poverty better. It is to break the cycle of poverty from one generation to the next. In 2024, we updated our multidimensional poverty index. It showed that 58% of Guatemalans live in multidimensional poverty, but measurement must lead to action. That is why we created our social registry on households, which now includes more than 1 million households, over 5 million people in 114 of Guatemala's 340 municipalities. And from that information, we created Mano a Mano, our main strategy to fight poverty and malnutrition. It brings government institutions together around the same families and the same communities, because poverty does not come in pieces. These problems come together in the same household, in the same community, and sometimes in the same child. So government must also respond in an integrated way. We are beginning to see results. Since 2024, we have replaced more than 100,000 dirt floors with concrete floors. That means we have already closed about 12% of the gap, affecting 840,000 households in just two years. It also shows how large the challenge remains. And this brings me to the Beyond 2030. For Guatemala, the lesson is simple. We do not lack diagnosis, we need continuity. Breaking intergenerational poverty requires coordinated policies, focus on the same territories and sustain over time. More than one program, more than one institution, and certainly more than one government. So, yes, we must measure better to decide better. But above all, we must state the course long enough to change the life of the next generation. Ending poverty is not a four-year project, and it is not only a 2030 project. It is a generational commitment. That is the commitment we must renew beyond 2030. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much, Secretary Mendoza. As we have heard, Guatemala's poverty outlook is dynamic, yet generational and long-term, using high-resolution municipal maps to understand and target efforts territorially. And they join a community of using census maps like Paraguay and Uganda, or social registry maps, as Dr. Fumi Oluto from the National Coordinator of NASCO in Nigeria here and many other countries are doing, to pinpoint the deprivation bundles that poor people nationwide and address them household by household as one of the most cost-effective and rapid ways to move the needle on poverty. And this is an appropriate point for me to hand over the moderation to Adriana Conconi, the director of the Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network.

Thank you, Sabina, and thank you to all our speakers so far. We will now turn to Tanzania. This is a very important moment for the country as they are strengthening its work on multidimensional poverty for national planning with the development of the new development vision 2050 now under implementation and also the National Bureau of Statistics is now starting the analysis of the data from the most recent household budget survey which was conducted last year to also inform multidimensional poverty measurement so we are very excited to welcome His Excellency Kitila Mkumbo, Minister of State for Planning and Investment of Tanzania. The floor is yours.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak here. I'm very pleased that I'm seated with very many people with very high profile, including Nobel Peace Laureates, also the former president of Colombia that I respect very much. I'm glad to be able to speak on behalf of my country and on behalf of our president, Samia Solu Hassan. I will have four messages. Number one is to say that 2030 is, of course, a deadline for the SDGs, but this is not a finish line. When our leaders adopted the 2030 agenda, They promised to end poverty in all its forms everywhere. And that promise was never a 15 year project. It is a continuous project. As others have said, it is the work of a generation. We are now four years from that deadline. And of course, the truth is that the world is not on track to ending poverty. One in 10 people still lives in extreme poverty. And globally, the rate has barely moved, only a few percentage points since 2015. And our current trends, after 20, the number of extremely poor people may rise, given the rapid increase in population, especially in Africa, in where, among other factors, food insecurity becomes a huge problem. So poverty is no longer a question of income only. It is also about hunger. It is also about learning. It is also about health, energy, water, sanitation. And the second message is our own experience in Tanzania. As we know, Africa has two main developmental phenomena. Number one, we see that a number of African countries are experiencing rapid economic growth rates, some of them the highest globally. But at the same time, Africa experiences highest rates of poverty, suggesting that the two are not moving together, suggesting that the economic growth within the region is not responding adequately to reducing the poverty. So the sub-Saharan African region still accounts almost half of the global total poverty percentage. And of course, if you combine the Sub-Saharan African region with South Asia, you see that more than 80% of the world's multinationally poor people are in those two regions only. And these figures are not far from Tanzania, which is why in our national development vision 2050, we have made reducing and ending extreme level of poverty one of the main agendas. So we are talking about the inclusive economic growth. And the reason is that over the past 20 years, our economy has been growing very healthily, more than 6%. But this economic growth rate has not been responding to poverty reduction. And the reason is that the sector that we are growing, we are not very much including the majority of our people. And therefore, inclusive economic growth has been the main agenda. with a dedicated focus on reducing poverty, but ending the extreme levels of poverty. But of course, those figures might conceal what is also happening on the positive side. For example, in Tanzania, we have made a lot of progress. Multidimensional poverty has fallen sharply over the last two decades. Millions of families now have better access to school. We are now talking about universal secondary education, and that used to be a distant dream only a few years ago. We are talking about every village in Tanzania having access to electricity, and many other factors. But also, you should not forget that only 10 years ago, the budget in Tanzania, the grant was 40%. Today, it is less than 1%. So our budget is becoming self-sufficient. So as I conclude, because I can see that the red card is there, we are talking about ending poverty means jobs, more jobs to our young people, means that we have to educate our people even better. But the message that given the connectedness of the world, ending poverty is no longer a dream, it should be possible. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Minister. Thank you for reminding us that while recommitment to poverty eradication is essential for the new discussion beyond 2030, real progress has been achieved in many countries, in most countries around the world, and that we should also acknowledge that and congratulate countries that have been working so effortlessly to keep advancing in their countries. We will now turn to Indonesia, where the scale and diversity of the country shows both how national progress is essential to be measured and monitored, but also the need for disaggregation to understand the different realities of different regions and groups within the country. Also, Indonesia has a significant experience in combining poverty measurement with social protection, decentralized governance, and efforts to reach highly diverse populations and territories across a very large country. So their insights are clearly very relevant for our discussion today. We welcome the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for Multilateral Affairs in Indonesia, His Excellency Denny Abdi.

Thank you, Madam Moderator, Excellencies, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen. Indonesia welcomes this timely session on renewing the global commitment to end poverty in all its dimensions as the international community reflects on the future of development cooperation beyond 2030. Poverty is not only a matter of income. It is also reflected in unequal access to quality education, health services, nutrition, decent housing, sanitation, clean energy, decent work, social protection, and meaningful participation in society. Today's interconnectedness challenges, including climate change, disasters, food insecurity, conflict, economic uncertainty, and widening inequalities, can deepen existing deprivations. Our response must therefore be integrated, inclusive, and people-centered. Indonesia has made important progress while recognizing the unfinished task ahead. Yet, disparities remain, including between urban and rural areas, reinforcing the need to look beyond national averages and address multiple vulnerabilities. For Indonesia, multidimensional poverty measurement is valuable not only because it measures poverty differently, but because it can help the government respond differently by identifying overlapping disadvantages, breaking policy silos, improving targeting and guiding policies and budget allocation towards those most in need. At the same time, methodologies and indicators must remain nationally owned and adapted to each country's development context. Policy priorities, statistical capacity, and data availability, there can be no one-size-fits-all approach. Reliable and disaggregated data are essential. In Indonesia, we are strengthening data-driven social policies through the unified national social and economic database to better identify vulnerabilities and improve the targeting and delivery of social protection. Better measurement must ultimately lead to better policy. Poverty reduction should be connected with adaptive social protection, food security, human development, decent job, disaster risk reduction, and climate resilience. Distinguished delegates, the post-2030 development agenda must be matched by adequate means of implementation. including predictable financing, capacity building, technology transfer, and stronger national statistical systems, and enhanced South-South and triangular cooperation. We should accelerate the unfinished commitment of the SDGs, while building a future framework better equipped to capture vulnerability, resilience, and inequalities that income measures alone cannot reveal. As we look beyond 2030, we should not start from a blank page. Indonesia was co-chair of the High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, assigned by the UNSG in 2012 to develop a concept of global development agenda, later on known as SDGs. Perhaps we can use this valuable experience to develop the next development agenda beyond 2030. Thank you.

Thank you, Deputy Minister Abdi. It was very enlightening to hear you emphasize the value added of multidimensional poverty measures to existing or more traditional metrics, including the possibility of disaggregating by subpopulation groups and for territories or areas within the countries, and the need to tailor these measures to the needs and characteristics of each specific context for more precise policy design, including the Beyond 2030 policy agenda. Okay. Oh, okay. So the Prime Minister now needs to leave to address. He has his address to the General Assembly. So we thank him once again for his leadership and for hosting the event. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Great. Now we'll turn to Spain now, combining both the perspective of a development partner and also a country with poverty and social inclusion remains as a very significant part of the domestic policy and domestic agenda as well. We will hear from Mr. Sergio Colina Martin, who's the Director General for Sustainable Development Policies at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Spain, and we are very pleased to have you here with us, Sergio.

For the opportunity, Prime Minister, President, Ministers, Excellencies, dear colleagues. So, as you know and as you mentioned, Spain has also strongly supported multidimensional approaches to poverty and to sustainable development. As a whole, in fact, in our vision and strategic planning for international cooperation, the fight against poverty and inequalities is inextricably linked as a dual challenge that we need to face. Moreover, through global initiatives such as the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty that Spain co-chairs with Brazil, we are also trying to foster together with many other member states and stakeholders this integrated vision to fight these intertwined challenges. One of the most valuable features of the MPI has been its capacity to identify how disadvantages accumulate. This has been mentioned by previous panelists. And I think it's important to remember that, of course, this is not a question of fate, but really a matter of structural barriers for the effective exercise and access to human rights. and a matter, of course, of political and socio-economic choices. In that sense, I think, as also has been mentioned, the capacity of disaggregating information across population groups and territories provides a stronger basis, not just for knowledge, but of course, for more effective public policies. That is why also Spain has been supporting the SDG localizations agenda as a way of really making sure that we connect these global goals that we all agreed in 2015 really make them happen at the community level everywhere and for everyone. This is particularly important for identifying inequalities affecting women and girls, and we are talking here about half of the humanity, but also, of course, persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples and Afro-descendant LGBTI persons and other groups that often face these structural barriers that I was mentioning in an intersectional manner. That is why we also launched a strategic feminist cooperation strategy to try to really tackle these structural barriers on inequalities and poverty through a gender-based approach. And everything that I mentioned, we are also trying to bring to the broader Beyond GDP agenda. So as you know, also Spain has a privilege now of being serving as co-facilitator at the ongoing intergovernmental process and beyond GDP, mandated by the Pact of the Future. And we are very much committed to ensuring that this process is inclusive, transparent, and member state led with the contributions of all member states. An elements paper was already produced, and we would very much like to continue working with all member states and other stakeholders to really move forward in this process in order to have this shared understanding of what we mean by progress. And this idea of progress, of course, I mean the vision on sustainable development that we agreed in the framework of the Agenda 2030. For Spain, this Beyond GDP agenda, of course, is about improving measurement and data and knowledge was an important chapter of the Compromiso de Sevilla, a great FFD4, but it has to do with more things. It has to do also with the need of having better measurement for better decisions. And I think that's the important part of the discussion. I would just like to mention three very quickly, three points. We believe that in this process, this very relevant process, we should build as much as possible on existing frameworks and statistical systems rather than creating new parallel architectures or additional reporting burdens. I think we have a lot of work from the scientific community at international organizations on what the options are, and we need to move forward on the political will side, building on what we already have. Second, we need a stronger connection between measurement and public policy, as I mentioned. We believe that beyond GDP indicators should progressively inform national planning, budgeting, tax systems, and policy evaluation, helping governments to really identify inequalities and vulnerabilities. And third, we also believe that everything that I mentioned should progressively inform international cooperation and financing. And again, this was also embedded in the compromise of the Sevilla, which recognizes the importance of going beyond GDP and taking into account economic, social, and environmental dimensions of development, inequalities, and multidimensional vulnerabilities into access to finance for development. As you know, together with the UN, the OECD, the Inter-American Community, and many other stakeholders, including academia and civil society present here-- and thank you, Sabina, for all your work on that side, too. we're trying to generate the spaces for dialogue, informal exchange of shared learning and practical tools to really integrate this approach to everything that we do in sustainable development. And we believe that we should continue exploring together how this broader approach to evidence can really inform development cooperation at a time where also this policy is being put under scrutiny and under attack. Just to conclude, If it's very necessary to have these spaces for global common understandings on what we are talking about when we talk about multidimensional poverty index or beyond GDP measurements, we also believe that country ownership must remain central and that countries need the space to, using those common frameworks, identify their priorities and use also this multidimensional information according to their national circumstances, sustainable development priorities and strategies, and that this very technical work should be rigorous and anchored in the UN statistical system. So the experience of the MPI, I think, provides many important lessons. Many of them were already mentioned. But basically, that multidimensional measurement is most useful when it leads to action. So I think this is the spirit that we can try to foster in the framework of the ongoing beyond GDP processes, better measurement, better policies, and better informed financing for sustainable development in the road to 2030 and beyond. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Ercolina Martin, for reminding us of the need of looking into poverty and inequality as two challenges that share some structural or roots and causes, and that also require interconnected and integrated policies to address them, but also about how multilateralism and collaboration is so important when thinking about the Beyond 2030 agenda, how expertise from different area and different actors can contribute to a much more stronger and powerful approach when we think about post-2030, and in particular, how, while measurement is still important and relevant, we also need to address how those measures are used in practice and guiding better and more targeted decisions. So thank you so much for that perspective. will now return to Asia, particularly to Thailand, where the connection between national SDG implementation and international cooperation is particularly strong. We will hear from Ms. Katalaya Phatunros, Deputy Director General of the Department of International Organizations of Thailand, who has been closely engaged in Thailand's SDG architecture, including the Voluntary National Review and its preparation for the next UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework. And so, Deputy Director General, please, the floor is yours.

Excellencies, distinguished delegates, it's a great honor to be here today among so many high-level dignitaries. Thailand expresses its appreciation to the Kingdom of Bhutan for its leadership in convening this timely discussion. We also thank ESCAP the multi-dimensional poverty peer network and OPHI for co-organizing this event. As a member of the MPPN, Thailand values this opportunity to exchange experiences on multi-dimensional approaches to poverty alleviation and eradication. For Thailand, people's well-being has long been a central priority in our national, development planning as reflected in successive national economic and social development plans. And as it has been mentioned several times at this meeting, poverty goes far beyond income alone. This is particularly true for middle income countries such as Thailand. Aggregate economic indicators may not fully capture the vulnerabilities experienced by individuals, households and communities. Multidimensional poverty measures can therefore help policymakers understand who is being left behind, how different disadvantages overlap, and where and how interventions can have the greatest impact. Thailand's approach to development has long been guided by the sufficiency economy philosophy, which emphasizes balanced development based on moderation, prudence, and resilience. It reminds us that progress should be measured not solely by economic growth, but also by improvements in people's livelihoods, well-being, and ability to withstand shocks. Thailand's commitment to leaving no one behind was highlighted in our most recent voluntary national review in 2025. One example is the Thai People Map and Analytics Platform, or the TP Map. This publicly accessible online platform integrates data from multiple government sources and applies a multidimensional poverty framework. It helps authorities identify vulnerable households and develop more targeted interventions across areas such as health, education, living standards, economic well-being, and social protection. Our VNR also feature a leave no one behind analysis undertaken with support from ESCAP and based on national SDG data. The findings showed encouraging progress. Between 2012 and 2022, opportunities became more equitable across many dimensions of development. At the same time, the analysis identified areas such as educational attainment, access to clean cooking fuels, and internet connectivity, where gaps between furthest behind and those furthest ahead are relatively wider. Excellencies, as discussions on development beyond 2030 begin to take shape, an important question is, are our existing measures of progress fully capturing people's lived realities, wellbeing, and resilience? In this context, Thailand welcomes further discussion on the potential contribution of multidimensional approaches, including the discussion on developing beyond GDP indicators, how they may complement traditional economic indicators like GDP, and how they may provide useful insights for the global development agenda after 2030. This will help policymakers better understand how much economic growth translates into improved well-being, more inclusive opportunities, stronger human capital, better environmental outcomes, and greater resilience. And we look forward to ESCAP's forthcoming Social Outlook 2026, which will further enrich regional discussions on multidimensional poverty and inclusive development. In closing, Thailand remains committed to working with all partners to advance evidence-based policy making, strengthen resilience, and ensure that no one is left behind. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Ms. Phatthumrus, for bringing the experience of Thailand and reminding us what the powerful good data can do in terms of informing actionable policies and having a much greater impact on the communities that it's serving. We will now turn to Mr. Sigi Adam. He's the director of the Poverty Alleviation Department of Seychelles. Seychelles, a small island developing state, is a long-time participant and friend of the Multidimensional Poverty Network. Also, they show why multidimensional poverty remains relevant in context of countries in which the level of income is higher than in other countries that are usually considered for small island developing states. Other dimensions and other types of vulnerability, including to climate shocks and the cost of essential services, can be hidden when we use more traditional measures of poverty. And so the experience of Seychelles can bring light to other dimensions that can also be incorporated into multidimensional poverty metrics. Mr. Adam, the floor is yours.

Thank you. Excellencies, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. I bring to you greetings from Seychelles, a small island developing state, but one with an experience that reminds us of something fundamental. Poverty for us is never only about income, and defeating poverty is never only about money. It begins with political will. For Seychelles, this lesson has become particularly clear. In 2021, our poverty alleviation department ceased to exist as a dedicated institution, and its functions were absorbed elsewhere in government. Four years later, the Seychelles-wide electorate chose a new administration whose program included restoring a dedicated focus on poverty alleviation. For us, one lesson has become very clear. We cannot solve a problem that we are unwilling to acknowledge. We therefore believe that accepting that we have a problem is the first step towards addressing it. President Dr. Patrick Emeini subsequently announced the reestablishment of the department and the doubling of the housing repair program allocation. That change in direction matters. Because institutions reflect priorities. And when a government decides that poverty deserves dedicated attention, coordination, data and resources, it sends a powerful message. The dignity of those experiencing hardship cannot be an afterthought. Today, our approach is increasingly multidimensional. We are learning to look beyond the question, how much does this household earn and ask instead, what are the conditions in which this family actually lives? Can they afford adequate food? Do they have decent housing? Can they access employment? Can their children learn and play in a conducive environment? Are they protected from vulnerabilities that can push them deeper into poverty? This is why housing has become particularly important in our work. In a country internationally recognized for relatively strong development indicators, there are nevertheless families living behind walls that tell another story. Leaking roofs, deteriorating structures, overcrowding, and homes that no longer provide the security and dignity that shelter should represent. President Aminu himself identified deteriorated housing as a reason for restoring the department, while his government has placed broader housing provision amongst its local priorities. Our interventions, therefore, go beyond repairing concrete, timber, and roofing sheets. When we repair a vulnerable person's home, we are rebuilding dignity. We are giving an elderly person security. We are giving a child a better environment in which to study. We are helping a family move from vulnerability towards stability. And sometimes, a relatively modest intervention today prevents a far more expensive social crisis tomorrow. That is the preventive dimension of poverty alleviation for us in Seshels. But housing cannot stand alone. Seychelles is also developing a living wage framework, moving the discussion beyond the minimum amount an employer is legally required to pay towards what workers and their families actually need for a decent standard of living. The framework being developed with ILO support considers essential costs, including food, housing, healthcare, education, transport, childcare, and social participation. This distinction is fundamental. A person can have a job and still experience multidimensional poverty in Seychelles. Employment alone does not guarantee dignity if wages cannot adequately meet essential household needs. Our experience, therefore, offers a simple lesson. Measurement matters, data matters, institutions matter, but political willingness to act on what data reveals matters just as much. The Multidimensional Poverty Index gives governments an opportunity not merely to count people experiencing poverty, but to understand the different deprivations shaping their lives, and therefore to intervene with greater precision. For Seychelles, our ambition is not to create permanent dependence. It is to identify vulnerability early, intervene intelligently, restore dignity, and create the conditions to which people can move forward through their own capabilities. We are still learning, we are still building our systems, and we certainly do not present Seychelles' experience as a finished product. But perhaps our smallness gives us an opportunity to bring policy closer to people, data closer to decisions, and government closer to the household. Because ultimately, multidimensional poverty is not about indicators on a spreadsheet only. Behind every indicator is a person, behind every deprivation is a human story, and behind every successful intervention is a life given another opportunity. That is the Seychelles experience we bring to the conversation. And I am happy to note that the network brings together not only new ideas, but it supports ideas that are already here. So for example, we have the delegation from Guatemala, Indonesia, and even Thailand, who has their social registry, for example, and the likes. And we are trying to work towards one of those as well. And maybe this will be a great opportunity for us to have this conversation with you. And our commitment is development measures measured not only by what a country produces, it is measured not by only what a country produces, but by the dignity in which its people are able to live. Thank you.

Thanks. Thank you so much, Mr. Adam, for bringing the unique perspective of Seychelles, mentioning this very interesting experience that could be very useful also to other high-income countries, and also emphasizing the need for institutionalization and how countries can go through different moments in their cycles of poverty measurement and recommit to multidimensional poverty measurement. And also very interesting to hear about how the MPI can be a tool to show paths out of poverty and building a sense of dignity for people that are able to leave poverty. Thank you so much. So for our final country intervention, we will now turn to Nepal. And there's Swarmin Wagle, the former vice chancellor of the National Planning Commission and current minister of finance of Nepal. The country developed its national MPI, which also allows for very rich disaggregations. Nepal, just like Bhutan, Bangladesh, India, and the Maldives in South Asia, had fast and strong reductions in multidimensional poverty, with the poorest groups and poorest populations in the countries being the ones reducing poverty the fastest and the most, showing how a poverty reduction strategy can be designed to leave no one behind. So this is a very interesting perspective that we will hear now. I am very grateful to then turn to Amrit Bahadur Rai, Foreign Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nepal.

Thank you, Madam Moderator. Excellencies, distinguished delegates, it is a distinct honor to address this forward-looking gathering. At the outset, I express my sincere appreciation to the Prime Minister of Bhutan, Dasho Tshering Tobgay, and the World Government, and all other co-organizers for convening this important dialogue. Bhutan's pioneering philosophy of gross national happiness has long challenged the world to move beyond unidimensional metrics and embrace a holistic vision of human flourishing. Between Nepal and Bhutan, This holistic worldview is an ancient civilizational inheritance. Our shared Himalayan geography was profoundly sanctified by the journey of Guru Rinpoche, Padmasambhava. Guru Rinpoche's teaching reminds us that true progress is impossible without inner harmony, reverence for nature, and compassionate action to alleviate suffering. It is rooted in the civilizational consciousness that Nepal last year led the initiative at the United Nations General Assembly to proclaim 15th of April as the International Wellness Day. And this resolution underscores that well-being cannot be reduced to income alone. It encompasses physical vitality, mental peace, emotional security, community inclusion, and ecological balance. When we measure poverty and prosperity through this lens of holistic wellness, we recognize that ending deprivation requires nurturing dignity of whole person in harmony with our living planet. Excellencies, poverty has never been a simple deficit of monetary income. It is the daily denial of basic capability, security, and human agency. A single monetary poverty line cannot convey what it means for a parent to watch a child drop out of school, for an illness to bankrupt a household, or for an entire community to live under the constant shadow of climate devastation. And this is why a multidimensional approach is indispensable. Across the globe, more than 1 billion people remain trapped in acute multidimensional poverty, and over half of them, innocent children. And Nepal's development experience offers valuable empirical relations. Between 2014 and 2022, Nepal reduced the proportion of its population living in multidimensional poverty from 30% to 17%. And this was achieved through sustained public investment in universal education, primary health, safe drinking water, and rights-based social safety nets, alongside targeted affirmative policies for historically marginalized communities. Yet, substantial disparities persist across geographies and communities. Our core objective is not merely enabling citizens to cross the poverty line, but building durable resilience so they never fall back into it. And this challenge has become existential due to the accelerating climate crisis. Just weeks ago, devastating flash flood like Himalayan tsunami triggered by glacial rockfall tore through the valleys of Nepal in the Voted Koshi River corridor. Roaring floodwaters washed away bridges, severed trade arteries, destroyed farmland, and pulverized the entire community within minutes. For an impoverished family, a sudden disaster erases years of accumulated assets in a single afternoon. For climate-vulnerable countries and graduating LDCs like Nepal, who contribute less than 0.1% to global emissions, disproportionate ecological hazards are the single greatest threat to smooth graduation and poverty eradication. And climate justice is inseparable from the fight against poverty. And to renew our global compact between Beyond 2030, allow me to highlight five decisive priorities. First, we must implement climate resilient risk informed poverty eradication. We must design anticipatory social safety nets that deploy immediate support before shocks plunge vulnerable households into destitution. Second, we must close the crippling development financing gap and developing countries urgently need predictable, concessional financing, grants, debt relief, and fair climate finance. Third, climate vulnerability must be embedded as an intrinsic metric of multidimensional poverty. Fourth, we must bridge the digital technological divide. Developing countries need equitable access to digital infrastructure, affordable connectivity, digital public goods, and the skills required to participate in the AI-driven economy. Fifth, we must decisively pivot from commitment to delivery. From the 2030 Agenda and the Pact for the Future to Doha Programme of Action for LDCs and Doha Political Declaration of the World Summit, frameworks already exist. Excellencies, distinguished delegates, as we look beyond 2030, Our measures of success cannot merely be gross domestic product. It must be whether our people are healthy and educated, whether women and marginalized groups enjoy equal opportunity, whether working families have dignified livelihoods, and whether communities can withstand the next shock. Our ancient Himalayan tradition guides us with a universal prayer, "Sarve Bhavantu Sukhina." May all beings be happy, healthy, and free from suffering, let us renew our shared compact to build a world where well-being is universal, human dignity is inviolable, and poverty in all its dimensions is eradicated for all time. Thank you.

Thank you, Secretary, and thank you to all our speakers today for such relevant and timely interventions and reflections today as we approach the 2030 mark set by the SDGs. We are past our time, so I'm going to close very, very quickly. I just want to emphasize three points from our discussions today. First, that poverty must remain at the center of the global agenda post 2030. And this means looking at poverty in all its dimensions. Of course, monetary measures are still highly relevant, but multidimensional frameworks complement these approaches. And the MPI in particular is a tool that brings a lot of value added and disaggregations and information for policymakers as they develop their poverty eradication strategies. Second, what we measure shapes what we do, as it was mentioned today by one of our speakers. We need to continue reporting the proportion of people who are poor, because this allows countries, small and large, to monitor and to report the progress that they are making. But we also want to look at the absolute number of poor, because even reductions, percentual reductions in poverty can still leave millions of people behind. And so we want to have both the absolute and the relative measures of poverty monitored and reported. And not just looking at the incidence or the proportion of people who are poor, but also how they are poor, the intensity of poverty, and which are the different deprivations that they are facing, so that we can develop much more detailed and targeted policies to address the deprivations that people are facing for those that are living in poverty. And third, that national averages are very helpful, but as discussed by several of the speakers today, they are not enough. We need to go beyond the national averages and present also information disaggregated by age, by region, by ethnicity, and by many other subnational groups or subnational populations, again, to be able to really track what are the needs and also the challenges that different groups are facing within all the different countries subnational areas, but also to assign policies that better target those deprivations. Today also reminded us how we can all learn and exchange from the experiences in so many different and diverse countries, which are doing fantastic work in measuring and multidimensional poverty, but also addressing multidimensional poverty in an integrated and coordinated way. The MPPN, the Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network, is a space that is exactly trying to offer the opportunity and the space for countries to share their experiences. We now have almost 70 countries that participate in the network and a growing number, almost 20 organization, regional and international organizations that are part of the MPPN. For those that are already part of the network, we invite you to continue to participate and to bring your experiences and reach the exchange. And for countries that are not yet part of the MPPN, we invite you to join and to bring your knowledge and your passion for poverty eradication. Our next annual meeting of the MPPN will be between the 11th and the 13th of May of 2027 in Addis Ababa. being co-hosted by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Africa. We are very excited about partnering with them and having the opportunity to have our annual meeting in person next year. And once again, on behalf of the MPP and ANNOFI, we want a heartfelt thank you to our co-host, the Royal Government of Bhutan and the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific for their incredible support to putting this event together. To our colleagues and the speakers and all the participants here in person and online, thank you so much for joining us. And an event summary is going to be made available both at OPHI and the MPPN website. Thank you so much, and we hope that we can continue this conversation.