Roma poverty from a human development perspective Andrey Ivanov, 1 Justin Kagin 2 Summary: The most recent publication in UNDP’s “Roma Inclusion Working Papers” series builds on the collective work of many researchers, policy makers and activists involved in United Nations Development Programme’s interventions promoting an integrated approach to the realization of the human development potential of Roma. Reducing Roma poverty was placed on the political agenda and formulated as an explicit commitment of those countries participating in the Decade of Roma Inclusion (2005-2015). The European Commission’s Framework of Roma Inclusion provided additional political weight to efforts to lift Roma out of poverty. “Roma Poverty from a Human Development Perspective” departs from the standard approach to poverty focusing solely on monetary poverty rates. The paper instead proposes a multidimensional poverty index to better measure the challenges Roma are facing. The data used in the paper are drawn from a 2011 UNDP, World Bank, and European Commission survey, carried out in conjunction with the Fundamental Rights Agency pilot Roma survey. Thus data set represents the largest integrated household survey of Roma to date. The combined surveys cover 20,018 Roma households (and 87,717 household members) as well as 9,782 non-Roma households living nearby (28,214 household members), in 18 European countries. The survey follows the approach tested in 2004 by UNDP in the first comprehensive regional survey of Roma at risk of marginalization and non-Roma living in close proximity (UNDP 2006). Using these data, “Roma Poverty from a Human Development Perspective” shows that various approaches to poverty estimation that calculate monetary poverty (by income and by expenditures) yield a generally consistent picture. 1 Head of the Roma and migrants integration sector at the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights. 2 Executive director, Kagin’s Consulting.