Our 2017
Over the past several years, the global community has realized that poverty cannot be simply measured by income alone. The World Bank’s Commission on Global Poverty released their recommendations in October 2016, which acknowledged these limitations and recommended the adoption of a multidimensional measurement of poverty using the Alkire Foster method. Years before these recommendations emerged, national governments had already been exploring measures to counteract multi-level poverty.
The Poverty Stoplight offers three vital contributions to this growing global movement: (i) its indicators are self-assessed by the individuals and families who participate, (ii) it includes measures of agency and organization, and (iii) it is designed to cover only those indicators that are actionable.
The Poverty Stoplight seeks to address global poverty, carefully measuring and monitoring it at the local level, and activating the capacity of the poor to become agents of change in their own lives. It works to eliminate poverty, household by household, by talking directly to people who are living in destitution. This measurement tool, originally developed out of Fundacion Paraguaya, uses a methodology that helps impoverished families map their needs so they can navigate a way out.
As a metric and a methodology, the Poverty Stoplight allows families to self-assess their level of poverty through a visual survey which uses 50 indicators. The indicators are grouped into 6 dimensions of poverty: Income & Employment, Health & Environment, Housing & Infrastructure, Education & Culture, Organization & Participation and Interiority & Motivational. Each indicator is defined as Red (extreme poverty), Yellow (poverty) or Green (no poverty). After completing the survey, families choose which specific indicators they want to change from red or yellow to green and then work with program staff who support them as they make a plan to leave poverty. Thus, the methodology generates poverty elimination plans that go beyond traditional aid, and which seek to bring about changes in the typical patterns that create and sustain poverty.
Ultimately, the Poverty Stoplight has improved the lives of thousands through a process that enables families in poverty to be the protagonists of their life.
Scaling-Up
Since the Poverty Stoplight’s inception in 2011, this tool and program has been developed and tested through different pilots in multiple settings, which include a microfinance program; 94 local private businesses; around 156 organizations in 24 countries like South Africa, Argentina, Mexico, U.K., Tanzania and the U.S. This rich experience allowed for the development of a scale-up strategy. After testing the Stoplight’s adaptability and witnessing the demand for this intervention across three continents, 2017 was a year dedicated to global expansion as well as to a strengthening of evidence-based programming at the Poverty Stoplight headquarters in Paraguay. The scale-up plan, which seeks to bring the Poverty Stoplight to 30 countries and millions of users in the next 5 years, was kicked-off through two partnership models: a “Hub” model and a “Special Projects” model.
Partners that operate as Hubs represent the Poverty Stoplight brand in their country, acting as distributors and local experts of the tool and program. As part of a global movement of organizations committed to poverty elimination, Hubs receive comprehensive training with Poverty Stoplight headquarter staff and then work to identify partner organizations to use the tool and to exchange innovative ideas. By offering a practical tool for enabling partner organizations to measure outcomes against a common framework, Hubs catalyze a paradigm shift that stresses that the toughest poverty challenges can be eliminated through behavior change at the individual and family level.
For particular cases, partners are brought in to work on Special Projects. These partners may be organizations, businesses, or governments that implement the Poverty Stoplight within their existing programs, but without identifying or training other organizations to use the Poverty Stoplight. Special projects use the Poverty Stoplight to empower clients, make “visible” the invisible manifestations of poverty, and to monitor and evaluate their programs.
Partnerships and Alliances
At the close of 2017, the Poverty Stoplight held active partnerships in 15 countries through 8 Hubs, 6 Special Projects and the headquarters office in Paraguay, as well as the work with key strategic partners that contribute to the overall development of the program.
Poverty Stoplight Hubs:
- South Africa, Poverty Stoplight Office
- Argentina, Fundacion Irradia
- Mexico, USEM
- Colombia, Fundefir
- Tanzania, Fundacion Paraguaya
- U.K., Transmit Enterprise
- Sierra Leone, WARC
- Chile, Geco
Poverty Stoplight Special Projects:
- Roots of Renewal, United States
- Bettr Barista, Singapore
- Domi Earth, Taiwan
- Banco Solidario, Ecuador
- Teach a Man to Fish, Uganda
- LOCFUND, Bolivia
Strategic Alliances
The Poverty Stoplight worked with 3 major universities to research the Poverty Stoplight’s impact and find solutions to poverty:
Additionally, The Poverty Stoplight maintains key partnerships with the following organizations which support and contribute to project funding, program development and design, and planning:
Monitoring and Evaluation
Based on feedback from partners and allies, and in consultation with international experts such as the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), one of 2017’s key themes was revitalizing the heart of the Poverty Stoplight: the survey’s indicators. For that reason, the Poverty Stoplight team hosted staff from OPHI as well as from the IMAGO team, in Paraguay. OPHI and IMAGO are important partners of the Poverty Stoplight, and assisted with the design and implementation of its global scale-up as well as a revamped strategy to measure and respond to poverty.
New Indicators for the Poverty Stoplight Survey
Whereas all 50 Poverty Stoplight indicators were already adaptable, in 2017, the Poverty Stoplight’s indicators were definitively organized into three distinct categories: first, internationally comparable indicators — aligned with the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) from OPHI; second, indicators that are essential to the philosophy of the Poverty Stoplight, though their interpretation may vary across countries; and third, indicators specific to a partner’s interest. These new standards allow both for international comparisons and several types of analysis, in addition to evaluating the results that can be contrasted with the country’s local poverty. Additionally, a Methodological Committee was formed to oversee, provide further guidance and validate international adaptation of the Poverty Stoplight’s fifty indicators. The Poverty Stoplight team works constantly to improve the metric, and has recognized that evidence-driven programming is the best practice across fields. Through strategizing with IMAGO and OPHI, four key areas for focus were identified: (i) strategic focus; (ii) revision of the 50 indicators of poverty; (iii) evaluation design; and (iv) collaboration.
- The strategic focus would redefine the program implementation guidelines for Fundacion Paraguaya’s (the Poverty Stoplight’s parent organization) microfinance sector. The focus will bring to light more information about the ways in which mentoring can support families in their efforts to eliminate their poverty.
- The revision of the 50 indicators of poverty aims to prove impact by evaluating the effect that the Poverty Stoplight has on the lives of families in Cerrito, Paraguay, a community where the Poverty Stoplight has already been implemented.
- The evaluation design will expand research on the benefit that the Poverty Stoplight can have on private companies that use the tool to evaluate their own employees’ living situation.
- Collaboration will seek to roll out a DIY version of the Poverty Stoplight that allows families to use the tool even without the face-to-face support of a mentor.
After four days of meetings and co-creation, all partners decided on several important resolutions. They agreed that the strategic focus of all efforts would prioritize “learning, validity, and resources” as an important aspect for design decisions regarding the Poverty Stoplight indicators, evaluation priorities and alliances. Furthermore, it was determined that strategy in the future will require an increased emphasis on working with academic partners, in order to ensure innovation and robust programming of the Poverty Stoplight.
Data-based programming
Additionally, to ensure proof of impact and not simply correlation, Poverty Stoplight conducted studies to validate the Poverty Stoplight survey. In collaboration with OPHI, Dr. Katharina Hammler, Fundación Paraguaya’s Director of Monitoring and Evaluation; and Dr. Martin Burt, Fundación Paraguaya’s CEO, studied the Poverty Stoplight tool in terms of its effectiveness in assisting families to rise out of poverty. The study, titled “Changing aspirations through poverty measurement: The Poverty Stoplight Program”, will be part of a collection of studies that utilize OPHI’s Alkire-Foster method to evaluate anti-poverty programs. Initial findings indicate that participation in the Poverty Stoplight program is indeed associated with a decreased likelihood of being moderately poor, and with a decreased number of deprivations. Questions remain regarding the overall improvement of clients suffering from extreme poverty. This suggests that the program is most successful in helping those who are closer to the poverty-cut-off, while more work — or perhaps simply more time — is necessary to serve those who suffer from extreme poverty.
Continuing the Poverty Stoplight technology roadmap
As technology remains at the heart of the Stoplight, developing an upgraded platform for administering and managing the Poverty Stoplight survey has been a main priority, now successfully achieved. In January 2016, efforts to begin upgrades began. The technology was designed to benefit not only current partners, but to be elastic enough to accommodate new partnerships and millions of users. Plans to continue forward include a variety of adaptable functions and features to make certain that the Stoplight is kept up-to-date.
Four stages of technology implementation were identified in 2017:
The first stage of the Poverty Stoplight Platform upgrade was initiated in 2016 and was completed at the end of 2017, just in time to be deployed in the U.K. in 2018. This first stage involves data collection, operating through a three-level user system, comprised of an administrator, organization, and user. The system allows administrators and organizations to create Poverty Stoplight surveys through a new drag-and-drop format and also to ‘create’ profiles for field workers. The robust framework serves to save data and allows for exponential growth so as to incorporate millions of new clients in the years to come.
The second stage — which will launch in 2018 — focuses on visualization. Real-time reports will be made possible so that communication and info-sharing is seamless, thereby facilitating the decision-making process.This stage also allows partners to safely aggregate data to analyze results and to exhibit to stakeholders.
Stage three is task management, which will enable multiple social workers to be assigned a variety of tasks, primarily focusing on post-survey follow-up with families. These first three stages secured funding in 2017 and will be ready by June 2018.
The fourth and final stage is the Bank of Solutions. At this point, the system will be a two-way platform, in which a social worker can reach a family and the family can also access the platform to find their own solutions or update their survey by themselves. Solution providers will also be able to use the platform to connect with those who need their services.
What people said
The Poverty Stoplight has been recognized by international organizations and media as one of the organizations leading the conversation on ground-up metrics, empowering families to be the protagonists in their own lives.
- Poverty Stoplight was invited to the United Nations’ Solutions Summit to be showcased as one of the 11 projects advancing the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals.
- Poverty Stoplight was recognized as a “development mutant” by Nesta.
- Borgen Magazine featured the Poverty Stoplight: An Online Approach to Solving Global Poverty
- The Wall Street Journal covered the Poverty Stoplight in their article, Putting Poverty on the Map.
Featured in 6 international conferences
Poverty Stoplight was presented at 6 international conferences in 2017, including:
- The Skoll World Forum
- Eisenhower Fellows Gathering
- The United Nations’ Solutions Summit
- The United Nations’ Global Compact Regional Conference
- The United Nations Development Program’s Istanbul Innovation Days
- The World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting of the Global Future Councils
In the heart of South America
Paraguay, through Fundación Paraguaya headquarters in Asunción, serves as a hub for innovation for the global Poverty Stoplight program, with a clear dedication to incubating new ideas that facilitate Poverty Stoplight projects worldwide. Five hundred staff made up the dedicated core team, which managed the process of customer discovery and validation.
These were the key achievements of 2017:
- 900 families rose out of poverty, of which 459 families improved their income and 441 successfully turned their fifty indicators green. In other words, this year, 51% of families improved their income and achieved above the poverty line.
- 320 families employed microfranchise initiatives to diversify their income.
- 64 indigenous families in Takuaro without electricity received solar panels.
- Tens of workshops were provided around cancer education and prevention, violence against women, physical activity, environmental protection.
- 266 alumni from Fundación Paraguaya’s agricultural school completed their Poverty Stoplight surveys.
- A partnership with Tvet Academy was established so that all the content developed for training in the methodology is available in a virtual platform. This content is mainly addressed to the field workers of the Poverty Stoplight in Paraguay and to the students from the agricultural schools.
- The Cerrito Initiative, a program which will monitor and evaluate the Poverty Stoplight by surveying a community of 1,000 families , was born. The program aims to coordinate private and public initiatives to eradicate Poverty in the community.
- 28 new Paraguayan companies began implementing the Poverty Stoplight with staff. 94 businesses were connected (and 15,000 employees) through the Poverty Stoplight.
- The Minister of Justice of Paraguay recommended that the Poverty Stoplight be used by 400 incarcerated women to map out how they plan to rise out of poverty.
- Ministry of Work declared the Poverty Stoplight of national interest for private and public companies.
- A Poverty Stoplight summit, Cerrito 2017, was held to discuss methods of alleviating poverty; attendees included over 160 representatives from 45 businesses and 3 international Poverty Stoplight hubs, as well as 7 government officials.
Big thanks to all those who have contributed to and supported the efforts of Poverty Stoplight in 2017. Check out this end-of-the-year video to see all that’s been done!
