Our 2019

The Poverty Stoplight celebrated its tenth anniversary since its conception and the first pen and paper prototypes in Paraguay’s countryside. Today the tool is implemented in 28 countries and we work closely with the members of the Stoplight Community to improve the quality of life of thousands of people around the world. This decade of experiences culminate in a social impact that goes beyond strategic alliances. It was a busy year, with many different achievements, challenges and insights on how we tackle poverty. Below you can read what we believe are the 10 main milestones of our 2019:

Left picture: Martin Burt presenting his book “Who Owns Poverty?” at Harvard Kennedy School. Right picture: Martín Burt presenting his book with Edmund Phelps at Columbia University. Central picture: Martín presenting his book to Pope Francis at the Vatican.

We launched the book “Who Owns Poverty?” and presented it in local communities, different universities (Columbia University, Harvard Kennedy School, Institute of Development Studies) and also to Pope Francis, bringing an important and challenging message to the world: We must rethink the way we measure and address poverty.

Session on climate change and poverty led by Gustavo Nagy, part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) who won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

The 2019 edition of Cerrito Forum gathered 165 participants from 20 countries to share and design sustainable, replicable and scalable ways to eliminate poverty. This May 20th and 21st, we will be holding Cerrito 2020, so save the date!

Annual meeting of the Poverty Stoplight during the Cerrito 2019 event.

Several members of the Stoplight Community brought together their local partners to share good practices, including: The Greenlight Indaba in South Africa, Developing Good Practice in the United Kingdom, the annual Poverty Stoplight meeting in Argentina, and the first After Office on poverty elimination in Paraguay. We also celebrated the progress of our partners and their commitment to empowering more families and communities.

This 2019, the Stoplight reached 28 active members and 316 local partners. Do you want to be part of the Stoplight Community? Go to www.povertystoplight.org and learn how to join this movement.

Picture above: Family from Lages, Brazil after completing their Stoplight survey. Picture below: Presentation of the Stoplight to SEWA in India.

We established partnerships in key regions, such as Haiti (Fonkozé), India (SEWA) and Brazil (Banco da Familia); and obtained funds from Rising Tide for the opening of a Stoplight office in the United States. By the end of 2019, we are present in the following countries:

Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Sierra Leone, Singapore, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, United Kingdom, United States, and Uruguay.

Ecuadorian family finishing their Stoplight survey.

The government of Ecuador, through the Ministry of Agriculture, formally adopted the Stoplight for its Toda una Vida plan. This year we finished the first stage with 1,029 producing families, reaching 3,803 people in total. In 2020 we are preparing to reach more regions.

Martin Burt presenting the Bill for Poverty Elimination to the Congress.

With a multidimensional approach and focused on the strengths of each family, we presented a bill that proposes to use innovative mechanisms to address poverty in a comprehensive manner, family by family.

Presenting the Stoplight in the community of Ybycui.

The implementation model of the Cerrito Initiative, a project that aims to activate 1000 families to eliminate poverty, is adopted by more communities. Remansito, Arroyos and Esteros, Ybycui, San Pedro and Loma Plata are the new communities where we work to activate collective agency as a catalyst for social change.

Stoplight surveys around the world.

We are proud to have reached this first milestone and congratulate all members of the Stoplight Community, our local partners, and strategic allies, who contribute every day to building a world without poverty.

Take your own Poverty Stoplight survey at demo.povertystoplight.org!

User: demo

Password: demo

Stoplight facilitators on their way to visit families in Guayaibi, Paraguay. Rsearch on the Stoplight as a poverty metric.

We are carrying out ten reseach to analyze different components of the Poverty Stoplight, including an evaluation of the reliability and validity of the tool. This research offers important evidence that demonstrates the functionality of the Stoplight as a metric, as well as the relevance and degree of focus of each indicator. We presented our publications at HDCA 2019 in London, ALCADECA 2019 in Puebla, Mexico, OECD 2019 in Bogotá, Colombia, and ANDE 2019 Metrics Conference in Mérida, Mexico.

The Stoplight survey in its digital version for data collection and analysis, as well as in its physical version for the family.

We transformed the tech area, putting it at the center of our agenda. We relaunched the app and web platform, and worked with companies with vast experience in tech development to continue improving. We incorporated the Customer Success area to solve questions in real time and with greater efficiency.

This 2019 presented new challenges, new insights, and new ways of leveraging technology to eliminate poverty. We thank our strategic allies, the Social Innovation Initiative of the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF), the International Development Research Center (IDRC), the Peery Foundation, and Imago Global Grassroots, for supporting the development of the Poverty Stoplight as a tool and methodology to activate the potential of families and communities.

People behind the Poverty Stoplight.

We are ready for this 2020!

Join us in this new journey at www.povertystoplight.org, our blog in Medium, and social media (Facebook, Twitter e Instagram).