By assessing poverty at the individual level, the IDM enables accurate disaggregation of data by sex, age, disability, ethnicity, religion, geographic location and more.

The IDM can be sex-disaggregated across 15 dimensions of life relevant to poor women and men, generating a gender-sensitive measure.

The IDM considers a wide range of factors as relevant to measuring poverty, assessing 15 key economic and social dimensions, including some especially important for revealing gender disparity (voice in the community, time-use, family planning and personal relationships).

Because the IDM collects data on 15 dimensions from each individual, it can reveal the impact of intersecting deprivations and inform targeting of deprivations impacting particular populations.

The IDM uses a 0 to 4 scale providing insight into the intensity of an individual’s poverty. Knowing how poor individuals are, in what dimensions, matters for policy and programming, and assessing the effectiveness of action.

The IDM can help governments and organisations target poverty more effectively. It can also help them measure success or failure, revealing what aspects of poverty are changing, by how much and for whom.

The IDM is the first poverty measure in the world based on the views of women and men with lived experience of poverty. The dimensions were selected based on what they prioritised as important to measure.