FOR those who work on poverty alleviation, in whatever capacity, there is good news and bad news. The good news is that we have a new indicator by which to measure poverty.

It is called the Multidimensional Poverty Index, and it uses metrics like education, health and standard of living to measure the level of deprivation suffered by those at the bottom of the pyramid.

This makes it a slightly superior methodology compared to the traditional measurements that use income, consumption and wealth as the main dimensions, thereby enabling a more comprehensive view of poverty in the country.

And this enables the new measure to give us a ‘headcount’ of the percentage of the population living in poverty, in addition to providing a more nuanced view of the ‘intensity’ of deprivation, that “reflects the share of deprivation which each poor person experiences on average”, according to the report’s authors.

The picture that the MPI gives us is not an encouraging one. Almost 39pc of the country’s population lives in poverty, if we go by the headcount. And every person in this segment of the population experiences more than a 50pc share of deprivation in all indicators, meaning the intensity of poverty is very high.

Further, the MPI confirms what earlier indicators had also revealed about the great, and growing, regional disparities in poverty incidence across the country — between urban and rural, between provinces and also between districts.

Fortunately, in over a decade, the poverty headcount appears to have fallen, from 55pc in 2004 to 39pc according to the latest reading in 2014.

But the bad news is that beyond a new indicator we have nothing. There are no new ideas on how to go about the task of alleviating poverty.

Measuring poverty is one thing, and when a new indicator fails to paint a substantially new picture of poverty incidence in the country, all we can say is that older ideas have found fresh validation.

Only a few months ago, the Planning Commission announced some revisions to official measurements of poverty. Now we have a new measurement tool altogether, also being adopted by the Planning Commission.

At what point is the commission going to move past the measurement of poverty towards fielding real ideas about actually tackling it?

What is sorely needed is fresh thinking on poverty alleviation that goes beyond the empty rhetoric of ‘inclusive growth’ touted by the government. What use is measuring the incidence of poverty if we have no ideas about how to tackle the problem? What use is a new indicator if it does not help spur new thinking?

This is the last full year before elections for the Planning Commission to show us that it has something beyond words and numbers to offer to the poorest of the poor in this country. We can only hope they will not waste the opportunity.

Published in Dawn, June 22nd , 2016