Community-Based Indicator Framework

Introduction

The National Community-Based Indicator Framework drawn from this project, intended to supplement the Canadian Indicator Framework, reflects participants’ subjective, multidimensional experience of poverty, which is wide-ranging, affects every aspect of life, and differs place to place and community to community. Synthesized across community contexts, the national indicators also reflect poverty as a violation of human rights resulting in short- and long- term physical, mental, spiritual, and social harm.

The framework outlines dimensions, measures, indicators, and data sources for poverty eradication (including recommendations and gaps, where no indicators exist) that reflect the knowledge and experiences of lived experts and community organizations across the country.

UNDERSTANDING THE FRAMEWORK

The entire framework falls under Sustainable Development Goal 1: End Poverty in All its Forms Everywhere.

The framework is organized by 12 interdependent dimensions of communities with no poverty. These dimensions are interconnected and non-hierarchical – all connect and contribute to the multifaceted way that people experience poverty in Canada. Many of the indicators could fall under multiple dimensions, but for the sake of length, they are each only shown under one. A short explanation, symbol, and participant quotations for the dimension are included at the start of each dimension. Links to relevant SDGs for each dimension are also shown via SDG icons.
Dimensions:

In each dimension, measures refer to qualities of communities with no poverty.

Indicators are statistical definitions of the measures.

In the indicator column, if there is no label, this means that the indicator and data source exist and may be adequate for the measure. The Proxy label means that an existing indicator and data source partially fulfill the measure. The Recommendation label means it is an indicator recommendation where an adequate indicator and data source do not exist, to our knowledge. Where this is the case, we note a Gap for the data source.

An indicator in bolded text means it is in the existing Canadian Indicator Framework. The number of the SDG, target, and indicator in the CIF are noted (e.g., 1.1.2).

Some indicators and measures are used in other existing Canadian frameworks, either by the federal government (e.g., Canadian Quality of Life Framework) or other organizations (e.g., UNICEF Canadian Index of Child and Youth Well-Being), and these links are noted in the data source column.

To read the full framework as a PDF, click the button below:

Dimensions

Right to Housing is Realized

Income and Material Security

Education for All

Connected and Supported Families and Children

Accountable and Engaged Governments and Institutions

Social Inclusion and Community Connection

Health and Mental Health

Joy, Happiness, and Hope for the Future

Food Security and Sovereignty

Equitable Access to Services, Programs, and Supports

Equality, Justice, and Freedom

Decent Work

Local Frameworks

Measurement of progress towards poverty eradication in Canada should reflect the lived realities of people experiencing poverty. The indicators used in the Canadian Indicator Framework for measuring progress towards SDG 1: No Poverty are the Market Basket Measure (MBM) and the prevalence of asset resilience. Campaign 2000 report cards and early research from this project highlighted the limitations of these two indicators to track progress towards SDG 1.

The project set out to address these gaps with an emphasis on localizing measures of poverty reduction and centring the knowledge and experience of lived experts. Local visions of communities free from poverty emerged. The indicators drawn from this research reflect participants’ subjective, multidimensional experience of poverty, which is wide-ranging, affects every aspect of life, and differs place to place and community to community.

Through the project, the research team held 17 community conversations with 227 people affected by poverty and intersecting forms of marginalization in every province and territory. While the findings depict a broad range of expertise from across the country, they remain a snapshot of 227 people, in 17 places, at one moment in time, and further engagement and community-based research is required to continue to centre lived experts in the work of poverty eradication and achieving the 2030 Agenda. You can read the local indicator frameworks using the interactive map below: