On Friday, November 15, 2024, IPED had the honor to cohost Pope Francis’ World Day of the Poor with Caritas Internationalis and Catholic Relief Services at the United Nations (UN) Church Center.
The event featured Professor Henry Schwalbenberg, Director of IPED at Fordham University, Ana Barragan (IPED 2025), and Genevieve Connell (IPED 2025), who presented the 2024 issue of Fordham’s Pope Francis Global Poverty Index showing statistics and trends related to the seven poverty indicators for the past 8 years. Swalbenberg explained, “In 2024, we found some improvement in the poor’s access to drinking water and above subsistence-level employment. Unfortunately, we also observed no
significant progress in the poor’s access to adequate housing, basic education, and gender
equity. On the alarming side, we found a continued deterioration in the poor’s access to
food and religious freedoms.”
The event also featured Ciara Hogan, Attache for the Permanent Observer of the Holy See Mission to the U.N., keynote speaker Ms. Lori Pearson, Senior Technical Director for the Food Security and Climate Change Department at Catholic Relief Services (CRS), moderator Brianna Fitzpatrick, Liaison to the United Nations from Caritas Internationalis, and Jess Morrell, volunteer manager at Catholic Relief Services (CRS). Ms. Pearson presented CRS’s work on managing soil and water in Bolivia, Madagascar, and Malawi.
The World Day of the Poor was first established by Pope Francis and is marked as an annual event to commemorate the poor around the globe. Inspired by Pope Francis’ initiative, the International Political Economy and Development (IPED) Program has created an annual index called the Fordham Francis Index (FFI) since 2016. The index presents a measurement tool of poverty by gauging seven dimensions of well-being, four of which are material well-being indicators; water, food, housing, and employment, and the other three are non-material well-being indicators; education, religious freedom, and gender equality.
Click here to watch the full event.
