Interview with Martín Burt, PhD
- Mike Jones
- Dec 5
- 6 min read
By The Gordon Nary (completed posthumously by Profiles in Catholicism)
20 November 2025
Gordon: What is the Poverty Stoplight and how has it been used throughout the world to address poverty?
Martín: The Poverty Stoplight was created to help families see their own lives with clarity, dignity, and hope. Using simple images and guided self-assessment, households identify their strengths as well as the specific areas where they face deprivation across multiple dimensions of life. This reflects both the “capabilities approach”, which highlights people’s freedom to be and to do what they value, and the principles of Catholic social teaching, which affirm the inherent dignity and agency of every person. What makes the Stoplight unique is that families are not observed from the outside—they observe themselves. They are not asked what they lack, but rather how they live today and where they want to go. Families build their own diagnosis, interpret their results, and take next steps using a locally constructed “solutions bank” and trained mentors. Through this process, families develop self-directed paths out of poverty—a shift from passive reception to active authorship of their future. Today, the Poverty Stoplight is used in more than 60 countries and with over 585,000 households. Everywhere it is implemented, the same truth emerges: when families are trusted with information about their own lives, they become protagonists of their development. Measurement becomes a meaningful conversation that illuminates daily life and opens pathways for personal, family, and community transformation.
Gordon: Your organization Fundación Paraguaya (“Paraguayan Foundation”) claims its mission is to eliminate poverty, whereas many global actors speak of reducing or alleviating it. Where does this difference come from, and how can elimination be achieved?
Martín: Choosing the word eliminate is both a methodological and ethical stance. “Reducing” poverty often leads to incremental improvements; “eliminating” requires rethinking entire systems. Poverty affecting families is finite, and deprivations are not infinite. Well constructed with objective, subjective, actionable and achievable indicators, family poverty elimination plans can be completed in the short rather than long term. Our approach rests on five pillars: (1) a clear moral and strategic mission; we believe every person has the right to a full life, not a partial one; (2) a multidimensional understanding of poverty: poverty includes safety, emotional well-being, self-esteem, relationships, and participation—not just income; (3) a bottom-up approach: families are the authors of their process; institutions accompany rather than impose; (4) cross-sector partnerships: governments, companies, NGOs, parishes, and communities each bring distinct capacities; and (5) household and structural transformation: poverty must be addressed on personal, relational, institutional, and systemic levels. This reflects key principles of Catholic social teaching—dignity, subsidiarity, and the common good. Poverty elimination is not an idealistic aspiration; it is a deliberate path that guides our daily decisions, alliances, and long-term strategies.
Gordon. What does multidimensional poverty mean, and how does it differ from traditional poverty?
Martín: Multidimensional poverty recognizes that well-being extends beyond income. A family may have economic resources yet still face insecurity, inadequate housing, emotional distress, weak social ties, or limited educational and community opportunities. Traditional poverty focuses primarily on income thresholds. However, as both the capability approach and the Church’s vision of integral human development affirm, what truly matters is what people are free to do and who they are able to become. Thus, the Poverty Stoplight evaluates material, emotional, relational, and community dimensions. It helps families understand their situation in full—and act on it in an empowered, holistic way.
Gordon: In Dilexi te (“I Have Loved You”), Pope Leo XIV warns about new, subtle forms of poverty. How does the Stoplight help identify these less visible dimensions?
Martín: Modern poverty often hides behind daily routines: isolation, lack of voice, weak community ties, diminished self-esteem, or emotional vulnerability. The Stoplight reveals these invisible realities by including indicators on relationships, emotional security, community engagement, dignity, and personal voice. This supports the cultural conversion Pope Leo calls for. By converting internal experiences into visible “red lights,” the Stoplight offers families a new lens through which to understand themselves. Families discover not only their needs but also their aspirations and the pathways to strengthen dignity, agency and self-efficacy. The model reflects “integral theory”, acknowledging that human life unfolds across inner experiences, outer conditions, relationships, and systems—all of which must be understood to foster authentic development.
Footnote: Editor’s note: Gordon Nary’s question refers to Pope Leo XIV’s apostolic exhortation Dilexi te (2025). The full text is available on EWTN Vatican’s website.
Gordon: How does the Poverty Stoplight address structural causes of poverty, not only household-level issues?
Martín: The Poverty Stoplight generates detailed, family-driven data that shows not only who is poor but why. Patterns in the data expose systemic failures—lack of documentation, financial exclusion, weak labor protections, inadequate infrastructure, or insufficient public services. This evidence helps governments, parishes, NGOs, and companies correct structural barriers families cannot address alone. It becomes a tool for institutional reform, coordinated action, and community advocacy. By placing families at the center of diagnosis and decision-making—devolving poverty to the poor—the model challenges top-down development and contributes to the deeper structural transformation the Pope calls for in Dilexi te.
Gordon: What role do you envision for the Church in scaling this model?
Martín: The Church plays an irreplaceable role in the life of families. Its pastoral mission—affirming human dignity, listening to the suffering, and nurturing the common good—is deeply aligned with the ethos of the Poverty Stoplight. We envision parishes without poverty: communities that accompany families as they identify their blessings and deprivations, articulate their desires and aspirations, and build realistic paths toward improvement. Parishes, ministries, and Catholic networks can help families interpret their results, strengthen participation, and move from awareness to action. Moreover, the Poverty Stoplight serves as a next-generation tool for pastoral care, social action, and community engagement. It allows Catholic ministries to unite faith and evidence: listening spiritually, acting practically, and measuring progress in ways that honor human dignity.
Gordon: How has Fundación Paraguaya worked with the Catholic Church across the years?
Martín: Our history with the Catholic Church is long and meaningful. Among our founders 40 years ago, in 1985, were prominent Catholic businessmen and women. In 2003, the La Salle Brothers entrusted us with the San Francisco Agricultural School in Cerrito, Paraguay. We transformed it into one of the world’s first financially self-sufficient learning communities where students learn entrepreneurship by managing income-generating enterprises. Beyond this, we work with Catholic business leaders and associations in more than 20 countries where we apply the Stoplight in parishes, schools, community centers, and outreach missions. We also collaborate closely with Catholic organizations such as Chalice.ca and Unbound.org, which run child sponsorship programs. Through the Stoplight, we have shown the real, multidimensional impact these programs have on children and families—materially, emotionally, socially, and spiritually. These collaborations reflect a shared conviction: that every child is loved by God, worthy, and called to flourish.
Gordon: How does the Stoplight ensure that people experiencing poverty are active partners—and not passive recipients?
Martín: The Stoplight was built on a simple principle: true change begins when families lead the process: (1) Community-driven adaptation: families define indicators, images, and concepts in their own cultural terms; (2) Self-interpretation of results: households decide which red and yellow indicators matter most; (3) Personalized Life Maps: families create their own roadmap grounded in their dreams, values, and capacities; and (4) Institutional accompaniment—not control: organizations align their support only after families set their priorities. This approach avoids dependency and strengthens agency, confidence, and autonomy. Families become authors of their diagnosis, their plan, and their transformation.
Gordon: How do you ensure data is used ethically and preserves dignity?
Martín: Our first commitment is that data belongs to families, not institutions. Participation is voluntary, families can access, correct, or delete information, and we comply with GDPR and ISO/IEC 27001 standards for security, confidentiality, and responsible data management. Just as important, the methodology avoids conceptual stigma. Families are not reduced to a score—they build a dashboard that highlights both strengths, blessings, issues, and challenges. Institutions receive only aggregated, anonymized data that helps them improve policies or services. In this way, the Stoplight ensures that knowledge serves human dignity, agency, and participation—never labeling, profiling, or confining people.
Post Interview Edits and Comments by Profiles in Catholicism
His Holiness Pope Leo XIV, Martín Burt, and Dr. Luis Fernando Sanabria, during the presentation of the book ¿Quién es dueño de la pobreza? (Who Owns Poverty?) at the Vatican, November 26, 2025.
Reviewed by Eileen Quinn Knight, Ph.D. Profiles in Catholicism
Please find Martín Burt, PhD, Director Ejecutivo, at the following locations