Poverty is changing, and the policies designed to address it need to change too.
From November 17 to 21, 2026, we will bring together policymakers, researchers, analysts, and development practitioners in Bangkok for Beyond the Poverty Line: Adapting Policy to Changing Needs, Risks and Realities, a 5-day applied workshop on poverty analysis and policy design.
The workshop responds to a fundamental challenge. Poverty lines remain essential for measuring whether households have sufficient financial resources to meet a defined minimum standard of living, but they cannot tell us everything we need to know. A household just above a poverty threshold may face circumstances very similar to one just below it. People with comparable incomes may also experience very different levels of insecurity, access to services, exposure to shocks, and opportunity.
Understanding poverty therefore requires looking beyond a simple division between those classified as poor and those classified as non-poor.
Poverty is multidimensional and constantly changing
Poverty affects much more than income. It can involve overlapping disadvantages in health, nutrition, education, housing, employment, security, and access to essential services. These disadvantages influence the environments in which people live and children grow up, and they can reinforce one another over time.
Poverty is also dynamic. Families may move into and out of poverty following changes in employment, health, household composition, prices, or exposure to economic and climate-related shocks. For many households, these movements are not a steady path out of poverty but a repeated cycle of improvement and renewed hardship.
Disadvantage can also be transmitted across generations. Children’s development and future opportunities remain closely connected to the financial, material, and social circumstances of their parents and caregivers. Effective poverty reduction policy must therefore respond to current needs while also addressing the conditions that reproduce poverty over time.
Connecting better analysis to better policy
During the workshop, we will examine how changing poverty realities can be translated into practical and forward-looking policy responses.
Participants will explore contemporary approaches to monetary and multidimensional poverty measurement, overlapping deprivation, vulnerability, inequality, and poverty dynamics. We will also consider how climate change, economic shocks, demographic shifts, technological transformation, and changes in the world of work are reshaping the risks faced by poorer and more vulnerable populations.
A central focus will be the connection between evidence and policy. Participants will assess how existing interventions respond to different forms of poverty, identify gaps in policy coverage, and consider when cash support should be complemented by public services, employment measures, social care, and other forms of assistance.
The workshop will combine expert-led sessions, country examples, facilitated discussions, analytical exercises, policy simulations, coaching, and an applied assignment. Participants will have opportunities to connect international evidence to their own national and institutional contexts and to develop practical priorities for further analysis and action.
Who is the workshop for?
The course is designed for professionals seeking to strengthen the connection between poverty analysis and policy design. This includes policymakers and technical staff in government ministries and statistical institutions, practitioners from NGOs and international organizations, researchers, analysts, and professionals responsible for designing, financing, implementing, monitoring, or evaluating poverty reduction policies and programs.
The workshop will take place at the Jim Thompson Heritage Quarter in Bangkok from November 17 to 21, 2026.
For the full workshop program, learning objectives, participation fees, registration process, venue information, and accommodation options, please visit the dedicated course page:
View the full course details and registration information
Further training programs will be announced for Spring 2027, including Climate Change and Social Protection and Evidence for Policy Design and Programming.