Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (The Mahbub Ul Haq Memorial Lecture)

Ladies and gentlemen, and friends, Asslam o alaeekum! It is really a joy and an honour to be here at the PIDE Conference and also to be able to speak in the lecture that carries the name of Mahbub Ul Haq. I was honoured to do the doctoral fieldwork affiliated with the Human Development Centre (HDC) in Islamabad. I did my D.Phil fieldwork in 1996 and 1997 and of course then participated in the activities of the HDC at that time. It was really the vision of Mahbub Ul Haq, his eloquence, passion and commitment to the work, which gives one a sense of gravity and a sense of potential importance of gathering communities of people to debate issues about which we perhaps do not agree but which are so important to the society. I hold that memory very much in the mind. What I would to do today is to speak a little bit about multidimensional poverty not as an end in itself but, as we have heard in all of the presentations in this Conference, as the reason to address poverty, inequality, or inclusive growth to use the tools of our trade as agents of change. I begin with the quote from John Dreze and Amartya Sen that positive change have often occurred and yielded some liberation when the remedy of ailments has been sought actively and with vigour. I think one of the distinguishing features of the academic conferences it that we get space and time to really try to crystallise some of the issues that lies at the heart of these topics.