Assessing the Poverty Stoplight with OPHI and IMAGO

The Poverty Stoplight team at Fundación Paraguaya hosted Diego Zavaleta of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and the IMAGO team, led by Harvard Professor, Michael Walton and Dr. Ana Revenga from October 1st — 5th, 2017. OPHI and IMAGO are important partners of the Poverty Stoplight assisting with the design and implementation of its global scale-up. In continuation of efforts to constantly improve the Poverty Stoplight, these experts worked with the Poverty Stoplight team and management of Fundación Paraguaya on four key areas: strategic focus; revision of Poverty Stoplight’s 50 indicators of poverty; evaluation design; and collaboration.

After 4 days of meetings and co-creation, important recommendations were made. It was agreed that the strategic focus of our efforts would prioritize “learning, validity, and resources” as an important aspect for design decisions regarding the Poverty Stoplight indicators, evaluation priorities and alliances. Subsequently, this will require increasing working with academic partners in order to ensure continuous innovation and robust programming of the Poverty Stoplight.

The revision of the Poverty Stoplight indicators will be divided into three 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, but the interpretation may vary across countries; and third, indicators specific to a partner’s interest. Additionally, a Methodological Committee responsible for reviewing adapted indicators by working with assigned experts from client organizations in other countries will be formed to oversee future indicator adaptations. The revised Stoplight will be field tested and presented for final approval by the beginning of December.

Recognizing that evidence-driven programming has become a best practice across fields, the team fully subscribes to the idea that data matters. In order to strengthen the evidence, based on the impact of the Poverty Stoplight, four priority areas for evaluations were identified. First, redefine the program implementation guidelines for Fundacion Paraguaya’s micro finance sector. This will help in learning more about the ways in which mentoring can support families in their efforts to eliminate their poverty. Second, evaluate the effect that the Poverty Stoplight has on the lives of families in Cerrito, Paraguay, where the Poverty Stoplight has been implemented community-wide. With this research, a lot will be learnt about the importance of community activities and about the Poverty Stoplight’s ability to support families from minority backgrounds. Third, expand research on the benefits that the Poverty Stoplight can provide to private companies that use the tool for their own employees. In collaboration with various companies like Grupo Riquelma and Sueñolar, the impact of the Poverty Stoplight to changes in workers’ productivity will be assessed.

Finally, roll out a do-it-yourself version of the Poverty Stoplight that allows families to use the tool without the face-to-face support of a mentor. The evaluation research will focus on collecting evidence on the impact that such a “Poverty Stoplight light” can have on families’ lives. Apart from these four priority areas, developing a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation plan that will include basic process monitoring and some level of program evaluation for most of our activities is on going.

Finally, the collaboration strategy led by the international replicas team has recorded commendable progress in developing new hubs and special projects in 2017. For the overall scaling — and the centrality of learning and validation — efforts will be consolidated to assure the quality of interactions/relationship with established clients.