The UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) has released guidance to help governments measure poverty in their countries by producing granular data to identify the most vulnerable or disadvantaged groups, who often experience the highest levels of poverty. Poverty eradication is the first Goal in the 2030 Agenda: SDG 1, “end poverty in all its forms everywhere.”

The statistical guidance was launched on 13 January 2021, following a 2017 UNECE guide on poverty measurement. It is intended to support governments in managing the increased demands related to identifying those most often left behind. This entails producing indicators that are disaggregated along many dimensions. The global indicators for the targets of SDG 1 cover age, sex, employment status, geographic location (urban/rural), disability status, migratory status, and ethnicity, among others.

UNECE notes that groups who are often underrepresented in surveys and other data sources include: people without a fixed address, undocumented migrants, people living in institutions (e.g. elder care homes, children’s homes, and prisons), and marginalized ethnic minority groups.

The guide covers methodological improvements, including survey methods for populations living in institutions and hard-to-reach groups, but also stresses the need for changes beyond methodology. The authors call for “strong legal and policy processes to support statistical offices in producing disaggregated poverty measures, which cannot be achieved through methodological changes alone.” [Publication: Poverty measurement: Guide to data disaggregation] [UNECE press release]