The Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice (CSO) is work­ing on im­prov­ing the mea­sure­ment of pover­ty via the de­vel­op­ment of the coun­try's first Na­tion­al Mul­ti­di­men­sion­al Pover­ty In­dex (MPI).

Late last month, the CSO held a spe­cialised five-day work­shop aimed at strength­en­ing ev­i­dence-based pol­i­cy­mak­ing on the top­ic.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from the CSO, "For decades, pover­ty mea­sure­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go has re­lied pri­mar­i­ly on mon­e­tary in­di­ca­tors based on in­come and con­sump­tion. While these mea­sures re­main im­por­tant, they do not ful­ly re­flect the lived re­al­i­ties of de­pri­va­tion ex­pe­ri­enced by many in­di­vid­u­als and house­holds. The Mul­ti­di­men­sion­al Pover­ty In­dex of­fers a more com­pre­hen­sive ap­proach by ex­am­in­ing mul­ti­ple as­pects of well-be­ing, in­clud­ing ed­u­ca­tion, health, hous­ing con­di­tions, em­ploy­ment and ac­cess to es­sen­tial ser­vices."

The work­shop, the CSO said, is part of a na­tion­al ini­tia­tive to de­vel­op a T&T-spe­cif­ic MPI that re­flects the coun­try's unique so­cial and eco­nom­ic re­al­i­ties.

The re­lease ex­plained, "Through the train­ing, par­tic­i­pants gained prac­ti­cal and tech­ni­cal ex­per­tise in the in­ter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised Alkire-Fos­ter method­ol­o­gy, which un­der­pins the Unit­ed Na­tions' Glob­al Mul­ti­di­men­sion­al Pover­ty In­dex and is cur­rent­ly used in more than 50 coun­tries world­wide."

Aar­ti Be­dassie-Ma­haraj, per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and De­vel­op­ment, said, "De­vel­op­ing a Na­tion­al Mul­ti­di­men­sion­al Pover­ty In­dex will en­able Trinidad and To­ba­go to move be­yond iden­ti­fy­ing who is poor to un­der­stand­ing how peo­ple ex­pe­ri­ence pover­ty. This deep­er un­der­stand­ing will sup­port more tar­get­ed in­ter­ven­tions, bet­ter re­source al­lo­ca­tion and more ef­fec­tive so­cial poli­cies that im­prove the lives of our cit­i­zens."

O’Reil­ly Lewis, di­rec­tor, Projects De­part­ment, Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank said, “De­vel­op­ing an MPI strength­ens in­ter­na­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty and sup­ports bet­ter de­ci­sion mak­ing across gov­ern­ments and amongst de­vel­op­ment part­ners. It helps turn da­ta in­to in­sight and in­sight in­to ac­tion. The MPI helps to share where ac­tion is most need­ed and where in­vest­ment can make the most dif­fer­ence. The CDB is ful­ly com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go in this jour­ney. We will con­tin­ue work­ing with the gov­ern­ment and our part­ners to strength­en in­sti­tu­tions, deep­en col­lab­o­ra­tion and ad­vance in­clu­sive, re­silient economies.”

The CSO said the de­vel­op­ment of the Mul­ti­di­men­sion­al Pover­ty In­dex (MPI) is close­ly linked to the House­hold Bud­getary Sur­vey/Sur­vey of Liv­ing Con­di­tions (HBS/SLC), as the sur­vey pro­vides the main house­hold and in­di­vid­ual-lev­el in­for­ma­tion need­ed to iden­ti­fy and mea­sure de­pri­va­tions ex­pe­ri­enced by the pop­u­la­tion.

The re­lease said, "While the HBS com­po­nent cap­tures im­por­tant da­ta on house­hold in­come, ex­pen­di­ture, con­sump­tion pat­terns, and eco­nom­ic wel­fare, the SLC com­po­nent pro­vides broad­er in­for­ma­tion on liv­ing con­di­tions, in­clud­ing ed­u­ca­tion, health, em­ploy­ment, hous­ing, ac­cess to ba­sic ser­vices, and oth­er as­pects of well-be­ing. To­geth­er, these da­ta sources al­low pover­ty to be ex­am­ined from both a mon­e­tary and non-mon­e­tary per­spec­tive."

The MPI builds on the HBS/SLC by us­ing se­lect­ed in­di­ca­tors from the dataset to de­ter­mine whether house­holds or in­di­vid­u­als are de­prived across mul­ti­ple di­men­sions of life, the re­lease stat­ed.

The re­lease said the train­ing would en­hance the CSO’s datasets, as it stat­ed, "For Trinidad and To­ba­go, the de­vel­op­ment of a Na­tion­al MPI will pro­vide pol­i­cy­mak­ers with a pow­er­ful tool to iden­ti­fy vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions, un­der­stand the in­ter­con­nect­ed na­ture of pover­ty, mon­i­tor the ef­fec­tive­ness of so­cial pro­grammes and track progress to­ward na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment pri­or­i­ties and the Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals (SDGs). The in­dex will al­so help gov­ern­ment agen­cies de­sign more re­spon­sive and cost-ef­fec­tive in­ter­ven­tions by iden­ti­fy­ing spe­cif­ic ar­eas where in­di­vid­u­als and house­holds face de­pri­va­tion."

The work­shop held from May 25–29, 2026, brought to­geth­er sta­tis­ti­cians, pol­i­cy­mak­ers and tech­ni­cal ex­perts from the CSO of the Min­istry of Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and De­vel­op­ment, the Min­istry of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices, the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank (CDB) and the Ox­ford Pover­ty and Hu­man De­vel­op­ment Ini­tia­tive (OPHI).