2024 (LIS)2ER workshop: “Fighting poverty: Measurement and policy challenges”

Description

Poverty remains a critical issue worldwide, profoundly impacting not only low- and middle-income countries but also high-income ones. Addressing poverty is a top priority in global and national agendas. At the global level, the United Nations has underscored the urgency of eradicating poverty through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with Goal 1 calling for an end to poverty in all its forms everywhere by 2030.

The European Union has embedded poverty reduction within its strategic frameworks, particularly through the adoption in 2022 of a headline target to be reached by 2030: a reduction of the number of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion by at least 15 million, including at least 5 million children, compared to 2019.

In Luxembourg, combating poverty is a central pillar of the current government’s programme. This commitment includes measures to support low-income households, improve access to affordable housing, and ensure equitable access to quality education and healthcare, targeting vulnerable groups such as children, the elderly, and migrants.

Poverty is multifaceted, requiring integrated solutions that combine economic, social, and environmental dimensions. Understanding what works in reducing poverty through sound policy evaluation is crucial for developing effective interventions. In this context, the 2024 LIS^2ER workshop on policies to fight inequality—organised annually by the LIS Cross-national Data Center and LISER—aims to provide a forum to discuss novel research on poverty measurement and policies to fight poverty.

The workshop will kick off with a session featuring the presentation of the latest World Bank flagship poverty report Poverty, Prosperity and Planet: Pathways out of the Polycrisis and of a portrait of the evolution of poverty in Luxembourg over the last 40 years on Wednesday December 11 (6:00 pm) in Luxembourg City (Abbaye de Neumünster, room la Chapelle). It will then continue in Belval the following two days with 13 invited academic presentations covering aspects related to poverty measurement (challenges, new results – both in developed and LMIC countries) and the evaluation of antipoverty policies. The final part of the conference will discuss various papers that highlight concrete examples of policy interventions and of the assessment of their impact. It will be followed by a round table on the topic “Bridging evidence and action: How to evaluate what works in the fight against poverty?”. The roundtable will elaborate on critical issues in the area of policy evaluation. The role and utility of both ex-ante and ex-post impact assessments, the use of appropriate, robust and innovative methods, and the need to invest in suitable data will be explored. The potential for mutual learning between countries facing different contexts but similar evaluation challenges in different parts of the world will be emphasised.

The workshop provisional agenda can be found here.

Confirmed speakers

Massimo Aprea (Sapienza University), Christian Bintener (National Office of Social Inclusion, Luxembourg), François Bourguignon (Paris School of Economics), Herwig Immervoll (OECD), Justina Jakštiené (Ministry of Social Security and Labour, Lithuania), Markus Jäntti (Stockholm University), Christoph Lakner (World Bank), Luis-Felipe López-Calva (World Bank), François Maniquet (UC Louvain & LISER), Eric Marlier (LISER), Ive Marx (University of Antwerp), Massimo Morelli (Bocconi University & LISER), Krista Ruffini (Georgetown University), Kitty Stewart (London School of Economics), Alessandro Toppeta (Stockholm University), Eva Vivalt (University of Toronto), Roy van der Weide (World Bank), Nobuo Yoshida (World Bank).

Registration

Registration is now closed..

Organizing Committee

Learn more about the (LIS)2LISER initiative from here.

Inquiries

If you have any inquiries concerning the workshop, please write to lis2er@lisdatacenter.org.