Participatory Methods in the Analysis of Poverty: A Critical Review

This paper reviews and analyses the literature on participatory methods in poverty analysis. The popularity of participatory poverty assessments has greatly increased in the last decade, and a growing number of development agents is adopting some form of participatory methodology. This spread however seems to be possible even without a shared understanding of what participation stands for. This paper starts by introducing the broad lines of the debate on participation, before focusing more specifically on participatory methods in poverty analysis. After having discussed the tools as well as the insights they provide, some recent evidence comparing participatory and non-participatory methods is presented. Such literature allow to highlight both the strengths and the weaknesses of participatory assessments, as well as opening the way for new approaches integrating elements of both. In the last analysis, however, the challenge to the non-extractive nature of the methodology, posed by the transposition of participatory techniques from the project context in which they were developed to the policy one, remains serious and poses questions on what 'listening to the voices of the poor' means.

Killing Two Birds With The Same Stone? The Effectiveness Of Food Transfers On Nutrition And Monetary Poverty

Currently popular multidimensional approaches to poverty face the challenge of being translated into effective poverty reduction strategies. Central to this challenge is identifying policy interventions that can generate mutually reinforcing outcomes across different dimensions. With this aim we assess the impact of one particular intervention - food transfers- on both monetary and non-monetary dimensions of poverty in Peru. Using household survey data we find that the overall impact of the transfers is progressive from both an income and a nutritional perspective, though much of the benefit is nevertheless captured by the non-poor. In terms of nutritional impact, we find that food transfers increase household access to food, but that their impact on child malnutrition is not statistically different from the effect of other income sources. In terms of impact on monetary poverty, we find that the direct impact of food transfers is enhanced by the incentives they provide to increased work effort for certain groups. Overall, our results suggest that the pursuit of different poverty reduction objectives can build on significant synergies between objectives, though much could still be done to enhance the nutritional impact of food transfers in Peru.

The Many Dimensions of Deprivation in Peru: theoretical debates and empirical evidence

This paper aims at evaluating the empirical consequences of the theoretical debate on the nature of poverty, focusing in particular on the differences between Sen's capability approach and the mainstream monetary approach. The empirical analysis is performed using data from the ENNIV 1994 survey from Peru. Beginning with a brief review of the main issues emerging from the theoretical debate on the definition of poverty, a framework for comparing capability based and consumption based approaches is presented. A descriptive analysis of the various dimensions of deprivation is performed and the determinants of shortfall in basic capabilities are then modelled through 'capability production functions'. This analysis aims at identifying the relationship between monetary resources and individual achievements by testing for the significance and size of the 'parametric variations' which are at the core of Sen's argument against identifying poverty with monetary indicators. By elaborating on the results obtained, the importance of some of the non-monetary factors which affect individual achievements for individuals of different deciles is highlighted. Some conclusions with respect to the priorities of a poverty reduction strategy are then drawn.

Who benefits from promoting small and medium scale enterprises ? some empirical evidence from Ethiopia

The Addis Ababa Integrated Housing Development Program aims to tackle the housing shortage and unemployment that prevail in Addis Ababa by deploying and supporting small and medium scale enterprises to construct low-cost housing using technologies novel for Ethiopia. The motivation for such support is predicated on the view that small firms create more jobs per unit of investment by virtue of being more labor intensive and that the jobs so created are concentrated among the low-skilled and hence the poor. To assess whether the program has succeeded in biasing technology adoption in favor of labor and thereby contributed to poverty reduction, the impact of the program on technology usage, labor intensity, and earnings is investigated using a unique matched workers-firms dataset, the Addis Ababa Construction Enterprise Survey. The data are representative of all registered construction firms in Addis and were collected specifically for the purpose of analyzing the impact of the program. The authors find that program firms do not adopt different technologies and are not more labor intensive than non-program firms. There is an earnings premium for program participants, who tend to be relatively well-educated, which is heterogeneous and highest for those at the bottom of the earnings distribution.Labor Markets,Access to Finance,Economic Theory&Research,Microfinance,Labor Policies

Does it matter that we don't agree on the definition of poverty? A comparison of four approaches

While there is worldwide agreement on poverty reduction as an overriding goal of development policy, there is little agreement on the definition of poverty. The paper reviews four approaches to the definition and measurement of poverty - the monetary, capability, social exclusion and participatory approaches. It points out the theoretical underpinnings of the various measures, and problems of operationalising them. It argues that each is a construction of reality, involving numerous judgements, which are often not transparent. The different methods have different implications for policy, and also, to the extent that they point to different people as being poor, for targeting. Empirical work in Peru and India shows that there is significant lack of overlap between the methods with, for example, nearly half the population identified as in poverty according to monetary poverty not in capability poverty, and conversely. This confirms similar findings elsewhere. Hence the definition of poverty does matter for poverty eradication strategies.

Intermodal vs. conventional logistic of refrigerated products: a case study from Southern to Northern Europe

Most of perishable goods, such as fruit and vegetables, are transported in Europe by truck and clogging up the main road networks. The increasing demand for freight transport and the environmental concerns all indicate the necessity to embrace new means of transport such as the intermodal one. The intermodal transport uses swap bodies and reefer containers that allow for the use of interchangeable truck, train, and ship to reduce direct and external costs. Nowadays, the utilization of exclusive truck transport is due to its considerable flexibility and often to the disregard of the motor vehicle regulations during transport. This research aims to analyze some essential readjustments that must be made in order to increase efficiency in the logistic of refrigerated fruit and vegetables. To do so, some hypotheses were analyzed and formulated in which the strategic use of the truck was recognized and inserted as part of an intermodal transport system. The transport options of a combined use of ships and trains in association with trucks were evaluated with respect to the current prevalent solution of exclusive use of trucks. Such options were evaluated by comparing them under different itineraries hypotheses (from south Italy, Sicily to Germany, Munich) on the base of costs and transit-times parameters. This was done mainly throughout interviewing sector-relevant transport operators. The results of the comparison between the intermodal and conventional transport was shown to be economically more convenient with respect to both legal and illegal transport by exclusive truck transport, presenting lower per unit costs (swap body or semi-trailer, containing the same amount of goods). Moreover, the intermodal solution scores equal or higher transit times in the comparison with the “transit by regulation compliance” and much higher transit times if compared with the “illegal” option. Therefore, the regulation compliance aspect would partially promote the use of intermodal options in a future fair competition. In addition, besides reducing the direct costs, it produces several other positive effects in terms of external costs to the society such as to reduce road crashes, noises, atmospheric emissions and greenhouse effect. A more efficient system should plan an integrated system of arrival and departure organizing together the schedules of ships and trains dedicated to perishable goods and increasing the transported amounts. Furthermore, another idea is to stipulate commercial agreements with train operators, applying a reduction on the base price, by ensuring the delivery of a block train for an arranged period.   Keywords: Intermodal, freight logisticcentre, truck haulage, rail hub; terminal

Monetary and Multidimensional Child Poverty: A Contradiction in Terms?

Although the multidimensional nature of poverty is widely recognized, the extent to which monetary measures can serve as a proxy for non-monetary measures remains unresolved. This is of particular concern for children given their dependence on others for fulfilment of basic needs and assumptions about intra-household distribution that underpin monetary measures. This article adopts an innovative mixed-methods approach to investigate child poverty overlap and mismatch in the low- and middle-income countries of Ethiopia and Vietnam using secondary longitudinal survey data and primary qualitative data from adults and children. Findings indicate that monetary and multidimensional poverty are distinct constructs that are linked, but cannot serve as a proxy for one another. While the degree of dissonance depends on the types of indicators under consideration, poverty mismatch persists regardless of time, place and multidimensional measure under consideration

Poor Children in Rich Households and Vice Versa: A Blurred Picture or Hidden Realities?

An expanding evidence base suggests that children experiencing monetary and multidimensional poverty are not the same. This article breaks new ground by providing a unique mixed methods investigation of drivers of child poverty mismatch in Ethiopia and Vietnam, considering the role of measurement error and individualistic and structural factors. The analysis capitalises on large-scale secondary quantitative panel data and combines this with purposively collected primary qualitative data in both countries. It finds that factors at the household and structural level can mediate the effects of monetary poverty in terms of multidimensional poverty and vice versa, but that the size and sign of these effects are specific to place and time. The policy mix aiming to reduce all forms of child poverty need to be targeted on the basis of a multidimensional assessment of poverty and reflect the complex and contextspecific interactions between determinants of child poverty