The Business Multidimensional Poverty Index (bMPI), developed by the Costa Rican Association Horizonte Positivo is used by companies to measure the multidimensional poverty of workers and their households. Using the bMPI, companies can create initiatives that go beyond income to improve the lives of their employees. In 2020, Horizonte Positivo recognized eight firms in Costa Rica for their successful implementation of the bMPI programme.
Measuring poverty among employees to detect their deprivations and generate actions that will improve their living conditions and those of their households was the challenge accepted by a group of companies in Costa Rica three years ago.
Setting the challenge was the Horizonte Positivo association, a world pioneer in the methodological approach that applies the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), based on the Alkire-Foster method, to the business environment.
According to Mariola Montero, Operations Director of Horizonte Positivo, eight companies haven been recognized by the association because ‘they had an outstanding participation in the business MPI programme (bMPI), and their results translate into a positive effect on the households of their collaborators’.
The prize-winning companies had all completed three years of the programme, carried out an evaluation of the strategies implemented, and reduced multidimensional poverty within their organisation, positively impacting the employees’ households.