25 September, 2014 --- Deputy Director General Tan Weiping led an IPRCC delegation to attend a special side-event at the 69th Session of the UN General Assembly held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. Themed on “Universal Multidimensional Poverty Measurement for the Effective Implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals”, this side event was co-sponsored by the governments of Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Germany and specially supported by the Columbian Government. Senior government officials from 35 countries and international organization representatives attended the event.

On behalf of IPRCC, Deputy Director General Tan Weiping delivered a speech at the event. In his speech, Mr. Tan pointed out that, after 30 years of large-scale poverty reduction, China’s poverty alleviation work has entered a new stage and faced a new situation, new tasks and new challenges. In order to accomplish the goals and tasks put forward in the outline of poverty alleviation in the new period, the key is to keep a close watch on the poor, improve the pertinence and effectiveness of poverty alleviation policies, and take targeted measures in poverty alleviation. How to accurately define poverty and identify the poor population is an important premise to make poverty alleviation policies more effective. Poverty measurement with the multidimensional poverty index (MPI) can more scientifically and accurately identify the poor population, grasp their distribution and trend, and understand the cause and degree of poverty. It can also help coordinate relevant departments to carry out targeted poverty alleviation, and be of great significance to promoting poverty alleviation in the new period. The Chinese Government has attached great importance to poverty problem research and poverty policy innovation. Vice Premier of the State Council Wang Yang explicitly pointed out, “The evaluation of poverty status should be multidimensional rather than simply dependent on income.” Ever since 1997, China’s National Bureau of Statistics has monitored national poverty status from multiple dimensions, and published a multidimensional poverty monitoring report every year. This year, Premier Li Keqiang vowed to continue with the fight against poverty and never pass poverty from generation to generation. LGOP is identifying 90 million poor people from 25 million households one by one in line with the MPI and 10 priorities are being advanced from economic, social, environmental and cultural dimensions throughout the country to eliminate poverty from multiple dimensions. Currently, IPRCC is devoted to the R&D of the national MPI. In our view, the international community shall step up collaboration in studying and exploring multidimensional poverty, develop a MPI adapted to the Post-2015 Global Development Agenda through broad consultation and deep cooperation, combine poverty with sustainable development on such agenda, advocate common progress and address poverty, social exclusion and inequality problems.

Mexican Foreign Minister José Antonio Meade Kuribrena, former UN Assistant Secretary-General and former UNDP Associate Administrator Rebeca Grynspan and other politicians attended and addressed the meeting.