First Annual Poverty Stoplight Meeting: 12 International Partners Gathered in Cerrito, Paraguay
Written by Stephanie Manciagli, Assistant Manager for International Replicas
On May 22nd, 2018, the Poverty Stoplight community convened for the first time in Paraguay, bringing together 12 Poverty Stoplight partners* from around the world. It was a day full of bilingual storytelling and an opportunity for partners to share how they are using the Poverty Stoplight app to help families lift themselves and their communities out of poverty. Despite cultural and geographic differences, it was clear that many of the strategies the partners are using can function cross-culturally, showing that at the end of the day, there is more that unites families than divides them. The day, which preceded the Cerrito 2018: Innovation for Poverty Elimination gathering, was designed to tap into this unique knowledge and provide a space for discussion.
The day kicked off with a presentation from Eleonora Antar of the Poverty Stoplight Argentina Hub, Fundación Irradia, and a local Fundación Irradia partner, Monte Adentro. Eleonora explained why Fundación Irradia values using the Poverty Stoplight, namely because it allows for active user participation. It encourages self-reflection, qualifies qualitative dimensions and optimizes the organization’s human and financial resources. Juan Chalbaud of Monte Adentro followed by sharing that his key takeaway from using the Poverty Stoplight has been one of user empowerment; specifically, the observation that the person living every day with poverty knows best what it’s like and can use the Poverty Stoplight to discover what solutions are needed.
Eleonora concluded by sharing questions regarding scaling and commented on Fundación Irradia’s hope to implement the Poverty Stoplight as a public policy tool within Argentina.
The audience then began to chime in, with members from organizations such as CoreWoman (Colombia), GECO (Chile) and Avina Foundation (Brazil) pondering what solutions they could offer and what the role of the public sector was. Through conversation, the group concluded that by perfecting field work, the public sector might be increasingly attracted and eager to work alongside bottom-up approaches to poverty elimination, such as the Poverty Stoplight movement. Additionally, Eleonora emphasized that regardless of the sector, solutions required custom approaches tailored to each specific family.
The Poverty Stoplight Office of South Africa’s Chief Enabler, Laura Bergh, followed Argentina’s session, emphasizing the importance of the quality of interventions, rather than the quantity of surveys taken. Based on her three years of experience managing Poverty Stoplight programming in South Africa, Laura shared dozens of inspiring stories from households who have taken several rounds of Poverty Stoplight surveys. Most notably, the stories she told related to a demonstrable change in attitude, which eventually led to improvement in living standards. For example, of South Africa’s 55 local partners, The Clothing Bank, is just one of many who has found incredible social impact in just a period of 24 months. They have concluded that if a beneficiary oins their training and small-business development program and also uses the Poverty Stoplight, this increases their change to eliminate poverty in their families. Beneficiaries were typically entering the program with 27–30 green indicators (not poor), 15–18 yellow indicators (poor), and 5 red indicators (very poor). On average they graduate with 44 greens, 5 yellows and 1 red.
Two insights marked Laura’s presentation. First, she noted that the context of poverty changes within just a couple blocks in a neighborhood. Audience members from the University of California Irvine’s Blum Center reiterated this point, mentioning that this is a trait that can be seen in all contexts, especially in cities. Second, she highlighted three elements as being necessary for positive social impact: socio-economic development, personal development and finally, healing, which she considers to be the most important.
After a full morning of sharing, the group enjoyed lunch offsite at a local ranch, and then returned to Cerrito to dive back into learning. A panel discussion with Carlos Abogabir of Geco (Chile), Lourdes Agüero of Fundación Paraguaya (Paraguay) and Vivian Caje of ADEC (Paraguay) kicked off the second half of the day. The panel discussed a variety of ideas, commenting on: work displacement due to technology; the view that companies are the most influential organizations in the world; the opportunity to “humanize” companies; and how to talk about poverty without using the [still taboo] word itself. Participants in the room, including the International Development Research Centre, shared that having rigorous evidence would be essential to better engage the corporate sector.
To close out the day’s rich debate, partners were led by Michael Walton and Isabel Guerrero of Imago Global Grassroots in a dynamic workshop that asked participants to take actions to co-build the Poverty Stoplight that each envisioned. Through a variety of thought-provoking questions, partners from around the world reflected on the future of Poverty Stoplight: “How do partners ensure that they are empowering families over the long-term? Could the Poverty Stoplight survey be done peer to peer? Could Poverty Stoplight eventually replace measurements such as GDP?”
With these themes and more, the Poverty Stoplight community concluded the day with a reenergized commitment to challenging the way poverty is measured. Together, this passionate group of innovators will trailblaze the path for a growing movement, working to support 1 million families to be the protagonists of their own lives.
*The participating Poverty Stoplight partners include the following:
- Avina Foundation (Brazil)
- International Development Research Centre (Canada)
- Poverty Stoplight Office South Africa (South Africa)
- Geco (Chile)
- University of California Irvine, Blum Center (USA)
- Poverty Stoplight Special Project, Guatemala (Guatemala)
- Fundación Irradia (Argentina)
- CoreWoman (Colombia)
- Fusai (El Salvador)
- ADEC (Paraguay)
- Fundación Paraguaya (Paraguay)
- CCE Chemung (USA)
