Combining census and household survey data for better targeting: The West and Central Africa Poverty Mapping Initiative

There are often large regional differences in poverty and other social indicators within a country. But geographic poverty profiles based on household surveys tend to be limited to broad areas because survey sample sizes are too small to permit analysts to construct valid estimates of poverty at the local level. At the same time policy makers often need finely disaggregated information at the neighborhood, town, or village level in order to implement anti-poverty programs. This short dissemination note presents the process followed for constructing poverty maps using both census and household survey data in West and Central Africa.Poverty maps, census, household survey, Africa

Assessing the geographic impact of higher food prices in Guinea

Telling a policy maker that poverty will increase due to the recent increase in food prices is not very useful; telling the policy makers where the impact is likely to be larger is better, so that measures to cope with the impact of the crisis can be targeted to areas that need them the most. This paper shows how to use poverty mapping techniques to assess where higher food prices are likely to hurt the most using Guinea census and survey data as a case study. The results suggest that in the case of a rice price increase, the poorest areas of the country will not be the hardest hit, especially if the potential positive impact of higher food prices on rice producers is taken into account, in which case poverty may decline in some of these areas even if for the country as a whole poverty will increase significantly due to the large share of rice in the household consumption budget.Rural Poverty Reduction,Population Policies,Small Area Estimation Poverty Mapping,Achieving Shared Growth

Child labor and schooling in Ghana

Child labor is a widespread, growing problem in the developing world. About 250 million of the world's children work, nearly half of them full-time. Child labor (regular participation in the labor force to earn a living or supplement household income) prevents children from participating in school. One constraint on Ghana's economic growth has been inadequate human capital development. According to 1992 data for Ghana, one girl in three and one boy in four does not attend school. The figures are worse in rural areas. The authors studied the dynamics of how households decided whether to send children 7 through 14 to school or to work, using household survey data for 1987-92. They do not address the issue of street kids, which does not imply that they are less important than the others. Unlike child labor in Asia, most child labor in Africa, especially Ghana, is unpaid work in family agricultural enterprises. Of the 28 percent of children engaged in child labor, more than two-thirds were also going to school. Of all children between 7 and 14, about 90 percent helped with household chores. Boys and girls tend to do different types of work. Girls do more household chores while boys work in the labor force. The data do not convincingly show, as most literature claims, that poverty is the main cause of child labor. But poverty is significantly correlated with the decision to send children to school, and there is a significant negative relationship between going to school and working. Increased demand for schooling is the most effective way to reduce child labor and ensure that Ghana's human capital is stabilized. The high cost of schooling and the poor quality and irrelevance of education has also pushed many children into work. And family characteristics play a big role in the child's decision to work or go to school. The father's education has a significant negative effect on child labor; the effect is stronger on girls than on boys. So adult literacy could indirectly reduce the amount of child labor.Health Economics&Finance,Public Health Promotion,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Children and Youth,Labor Policies,Street Children,Youth and Governance,Children and Youth,Poverty Assessment,Health Monitoring&Evaluation

Assessing the potential impact on poverty of rising cereals prices : the case of Ghana

Concerns have been raised about the impact of rising food prices worldwide on the poor. To assess the (short term) impact of rising food prices in any particular country it is necessary to look at both the impact on food producers (who benefit from an increase in prices) and food consumers (who loose out when the price increases), with a focus on poor producers and consumers. In Ghana, the impact of a change in the price of rice is not ambiguous because a large share of the rice consumed is imported, so that the negative impact for consumers is much larger than the positive impact for producers. For maize by contrast, the impact is ambiguous since much of the consumption is locally produced. Using a recent and comprehensive household survey, this paper provides an assessment of the potential impact of higher food prices on the poor in Ghana using both simple statistical analysis and non-parametric methods. The paper finds that rising food prices for rice, maize, and other cereals would together lead to an increase in poverty, but that by contrastto a number of other countries, this increase, while not negligible, may not be as large as feared.Rural Poverty Reduction,Population Policies,Food&Beverage Industry,Achieving Shared Growth

La mesure de la pauvreté : vue d’ensemble et méthodologie avec illustration dans le cas du Ghana

Durant les années quatre-vingt, la plupart des pays en développement ont connu de graves chocs macroéconomiques qui ont provoqué l’adoption de programmes de stabilisation et d’ajustement structurel. Suite au débat public sur les effets néfastes de ces programmes, les 15 dernières années ont vu naître de nombreuses études sur la pauvreté effectuées à l’aide de banques de données microéconomiques, particulièrement des enquêtes auprès des ménages. Cet article fait un survol des principaux concepts liés à la quantification de la pauvreté, en particulier quant au choix de la mesure de bien-être au niveau des individus, à la détermination du seuil de pauvreté et à la mesure de la pauvreté. Après cette présentation des différents outils d’analyse, ils sont par la suite appliqués à une série d’enquêtes auprès des ménages ghanéens.During the 1980s, the majority of developing countries experienced serious macroeconomic shocks, leading them to adopt stabilisation and structural adjustment programs. Following the public debate on the harmful effects of these programs, numerous studies on poverty have been undertaken in the last 15 years using microeconomic datasets, particularly those derived from household surveys. This article presents an overview of the principal concepts used in quantifying poverty, especially in relation to the choice of the standard of living measure for individuals, the determination of the poverty line, and the measure of poverty. Following this presentation of the different analytical tools, they are then applied to a series of Ghanaian household surveys

Potential impact of higher food prices on poverty : summary estimates for a dozen west and central African countries

Concerns have been raised about the impact of rising food prices worldwide on the poor. To assess the impact of rising food prices in any particular country it is necessary to look at both the impact on food producers who are poor or near-poor and could benefit from an increase in prices and food consumers who are poor or near-poor and would looseout when the price increases. In most West and Central African countries, the sign (positive or negative) of the impact is not ambiguous because a substantial share of food consumption is imported, so that the negative impact for consumers is larger than the positive impact for net sellers of locally produced foods. Yet even if the sign of the impact is clear, its magnitude is not. Using a set of recent and comprehensive household surveys, this paper summarizes findings from an assessment of the potential impact of higher food prices on the poor in a dozen countries. Rising food prices for rice, wheat, maize, and other cereals as well as for milk, sugar and vegetable oils could lead to a substantial increase in poverty in many of the countries. At the same time, the data suggest that the magnitude of the increase in poverty between different countries is likely to be different. Finally, the data suggest that a large share of the increase in poverty will consist of deeper levels of poverty among households who are already poor, even if there will also be a larger number of poor households in the various countries.Rural Poverty Reduction,Food&Beverage Industry,Population Policies,Poverty Lines

Combining census and household survey data for better targeting: The West and Central Africa Poverty Mapping Initiative

There are often large regional differences in poverty and other social indicators within a country. But geographic poverty profiles based on household surveys tend to be limited to broad areas because survey sample sizes are too small to permit analysts to construct valid estimates of poverty at the local level. At the same time policy makers often need finely disaggregated information at the neighborhood, town, or village level in order to implement anti-poverty programs. This short dissemination note presents the process followed for constructing poverty maps using both census and household survey data in West and Central Africa

Benefit incidence of public health spending for public and faith-inspired health facilities in Ghana

This paper uses the fifth round of the Ghana Living Standards Survey collected in 2005-2006 to conduct a benefit incidence analysis of public spending for health. District-level financial data on public transfers are combined with household survey data on the use of various types of facilities by the population to assess whether public health spending reaches equally various segments of the population. The estimates of benefit incidence are presented separately for public and faith-inspired facilities, given that the later also benefit from public funding. The analysis suggests substantial variation in transfers and unit costs by districts, with higher costs in areas with the lowest and highest poverty measures, and lower costs in-between. Public health funding is also found to be regressive, in large part because hospitals and clinics still benefited the better off more than the poor, whether they are operated by the government or faith-inspired providers

Mapping religious health assets: are faith-inspired facilities located in poor areas in Ghana?

The Christian Health Association of Ghana is the largest federation of faith-inspired provider of health services in Ghana. With 168 hospitals and clinics at the time this paper was written, 70 percent of which are affiliated with the Catholic Church, the federation accounts for more than a fourth of all hospital beds in the country according to administrative data from the Ministry of Health. Using poverty mapping techniques and simple regression analysis, this paper aims to answer the following question: Are CHAG facilities located primarily in areas that have a high proportion of Catholics or Christians, or in areas that have a high proportion of the population living in poverty? It appears that the location of CHAG facilities is correlated today more with the share of Catholics living in specific districts than with the level of poverty in those districts

Combining census and household survey data for better targeting: The West and Central Africa Poverty Mapping Initiative

There are often large regional differences in poverty and other social indicators within a country. But geographic poverty profiles based on household surveys tend to be limited to broad areas because survey sample sizes are too small to permit analysts to construct valid estimates of poverty at the local level. At the same time policy makers often need finely disaggregated information at the neighborhood, town, or village level in order to implement anti-poverty programs. This short dissemination note presents the process followed for constructing poverty maps using both census and household survey data in West and Central Africa