The first of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development highlights the urgency to "end poverty in all its forms, everywhere" (UN 2019). Although reducing poverty in the income or consumption perspective remains the top priority in the developing world, other fundamental dimensions are also key to a decent life in modern societies, such as health, education, and living conditions. Essentially, poverty alleviation in its multiple dimensions implies overcoming capability deprivation (Sen 1999). We analyse the concepts and dynamics of multidimensional poverty in Brazil, where monetary poverty has markedly decreased over the past decades.Despite overall improvements in socioeconomic indicators since the nineties, poverty alleviation remains a real challenge in Brazil. The World Bank (2020) indicates that the proportion of the population surviving on less than US$1.90 a day (at 2011 purchasing power parity -PPP) dropped from 21.6% in 1990 to 2.7% (5.5 million people) in 2014. Moreover, an economic recession in 2015-2016 reversed the decline of poverty, which reached 4.4% of the population in 2018 (9.2 million people). Based on the international poverty line of US$5.50 a day (2011 PPP), more suitable for upper-middle-income countries, 19.9% of the Brazilian population (41.7 million people) was poor in 2018 (World Bank 2020). The country also experienced meaningful progress in social indicators that are essential for human development, such as literacy and sanitation. The literacy rate of 15-24-year-olds increased from 94.2% in 2000 to 97.5% in 2010, while the proportion of households with poor sanitation 1 dropped from 14.0% to 8.1% (IBGE 2011a).Brazil is also characterised by extreme regional inequalities, which reminds of the differences between developed and developing countries. Deprivations persist and remain substantially larger in rural areas and in the North and North-East regions of the country (IBGE 2011a). Considering a poverty line of a quarter of the minimum wage 2 (just under $2 a day in 2010), 39% of the rural population were poor in 2010, in contrast with 11.5% in the urban areas (IBGE 2011a). Differences between rural and urban areas are also remarkable in terms of other development indicators. One of the most concerning indicators is the illiteracy rate among people aged 15 and above, which ranged from 7.3% in urban areas to 23.2% in rural areas in 2010 (IBGE 2011b).The empirical literature has extensively examined the determinants of the reduction in monetary poverty in Brazil. The main reasons for this progress were economic growth, labour market improvements, real minimum wage rises, expansion of social security and social assistance benefits, both in terms of coverage and value, and macroeconomic stability (Campello and Neri 2014; Ravallion 2011a; World Bank 2016a, 2016b). Helfand and Del Grossi (2009) demonstrated that rural poverty decreased more rapidly than urban poverty between 1995 and 2006, mainly because of social security benefits. showed that ...