BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – The Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), in partnership with the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) and the World Bank, has placed poverty reduction in the context of sustainable development high on the agenda in pursuit of the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 1 – the Eradication of Poverty in all its manifestations.
Following requests made from member states as well as the aftershocks of the COVID-19 pandemic, which posed health challenges, negatively impacted learning, caused job loss, and exacerbated economic and social ills, the OeCS Commission and its partners relaunched the enhanced country poverty assessment program and data anonymization workshop on Monday in Port of Spain, Trinidad.
The relaunch opening ceremony and capacity building workshop event, which ends later this week, was conducted via a hybrid modality of in-person and live streaming for virtual attendees and was attended by permanent secretaries, statisticians, and others from across the region.
According to the CDB, the updated Enhanced Country Poverty Assessment Programme (eCPA) will accelerate poverty reduction and promote economic stability through the alignment of data with police direction in the OECS member states, in keeping with the provision of the Revised Treaty of Basseterre, in creating an economic union that would facilitate social cohesion, economic development and build resilience.
“This project represents a commitment to understanding and addressing the multifaceted nature of poverty in our region,” said OECS Director General Dr. Didacus Jules as he delivered remarks at the opening ceremony.
“Utilizing cutting-edge technology and data analysis, we aim to gain a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the poverty landscape. This is not just about numbers and statistics; it’s about our people’s real stories, struggles, and strengths. This work should also assist the region in responding and measuring our progress, gaps, and challenges as we seek to meet the sustainable development goals, specifically SDG 1 – ‘Eradication of Poverty in all its Manifestations'”.
Referencing CDB’s 2017 publication, The Changing Nature of Poverty and Inequality in the Caribbean, New Issues, New Solutions, CDB Director of Projects, Therese Turner-Jones, highlighted that the pandemic had exacerbated regional poverty in her remarks at the opening ceremony.
“COVID-19 created a sense of normlessness, worsened existing structural inequalities, and impeded citizens’ participation in socio-economic activities across client countries. The confluence of these factors has hastened the need for client countries to be supported by CDB and other partners in undertaking poverty assessments to access current empirical data to inform development policy and planning,” Turner-Jones said, emphasizing that the individual data collected would be kept strictly private.
Additionally, Olivier Dupriez, Deputy Chief Statistician, World Bank, and Thijs Benschop, Statistician, World Bank, facilitated the Data Anonymisation Workshop, which focused on Statistical Disclosure Control (SDC), a technique used in statistics to assess and lower the risk of a person or organization being re-identified from the results of an analysis of survey or administrative data, or in the release of microdata.
The updated eCPA has been re-designed to ensure meaningful results in the collective effort to address poverty and socio-economic disparities within its Member States while prioritizing data privacy and anonymization. It will also continue to prioritize the development of local capacity and aims to deliver tangible outcomes, which include, among other things – Extensive consultations with Poverty Assessment Teams across Member States, the completion of data analysis, and reporting on monetary and multi-dimensional poverty using the Enhanced CPA toolkit.
The relaunched eCPA has completed a draft set of monetary poverty results for St. Kitts and Nevis and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, as well as multi-dimensional deprivation indicators for St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and the British Virgin Islands.
It is designed to strengthen our understanding of poverty to help develop interventions while prioritizing confidentiality and anonymity in data collection.
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