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In this important book, based on his experience and with data and statistics, former President Santos explains how the battle against poverty was waged in Colombia, and describes the tools, programs, and policies that led to more than five million Colombians overcoming poverty.
List of contents
- Acknowledgments
- Letter to the Reader
- An Important Clarification on Changes in the Measurement of Monetary and Multidimensional Poverty in Colombia
- Introduction: A Commitment to Poverty Reduction
- 1: A New Measurement of Poverty
- 2: Colombia: A Pioneer in MPI Adoption
- 3: Institutional Design to Combat Poverty
- 4: Top-Level Follow-Up and Monitoring
- 5: Policies and Programs to Reduce Multidimensional Poverty
- 6: Fieldwork: "Planting Hope"
- 7: Poverty, Conflict, and Peace
- 8: The Sustainable Development Goals and the Multidimensional Nature of Poverty
- 9: Encouraging Results: The Decade that Transformed Colombia
- Epilogue
About the author
Juan Manuel Santos served as president of Colombia for two terms (2010-2014 and 2014-2018) and signed the peace agreement with the FARC. For this achievement he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016. Since his presidential period, Mr. Santos has been Angelopoulos fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, visiting professor of development at Oxford University, George Ball visiting professor at Columbia University, special professor at Universidad Nacional de Colombia, and senior policy fellow and distinguished visiting professor at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. He is the founder of the Compaz Foundation, a non-profit organization to promote peacebuilding in Colombia and around the world, where he continues to empower victims, consolidate peace, reduce poverty, and defend the environment.
Summary
In the second decade of the 21st century, Colombia showed surprising results in the fight against poverty. Monetary poverty dropped, extreme monetary poverty was cut in half, and multidimensional poverty fell. More than five million Colombians overcame poverty. Inequality also decreased significantly. In the middle of an internal armed conflict and peace negotiations, Colombia became a poverty reduction success story. All of this happened under the leadership of President Juan Manuel Santos (2010-2018). How was this accomplished?
In this important book, based on his experience and with data and statistics, former President Santos explains how this battle against poverty was waged and describes the tools, programs, and policies that produced these results. In particular, he emphasizes the importance of Colombia's globally pioneering adoption of the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), calculated according to the Alkire-Foster method and developed at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI). The MPI, inspired by the work of Professor Amartya Sen, has been used in Colombia not only as a poverty measure but also as an instrument to guide social policy.
The Colombian approach to poverty offers lessons, clearly explained in this book, to other nations, academics, and decision-makers. The Colombian experience demonstrates that, with political leadership and reliable poverty measurement, it is possible to make progress toward social equality.
