ST/ESA/STAT/POVERTY/WWW
21 July 2004
Handbook on Poverty Statistics:
Concepts, Methods and
Policy Use
Chapter 3. Practices of poverty measurements
To review past and present practices of poverty measurement, highlighting
the progressive broadening of the definition and measurement of poverty
- from command over income to other dimensions of well being (e.g. longevity,
education, health) and more recently, to risk, vulnerability, powerlessness
and lack of voice; to pay attention to the rapid changing international
and global context and its effect on poverty measurement.
Based in part on the experiences accumulated by the Rio Group and four
regional workshops organized in connection with the project: to discuss
the data availability and quality of existing poverty statistics (e.g.
at national and sub-national and global levels, disaggregated by gender);
to review country practices including methodologies/concepts, data collection
tools, the regularity and disaggregation of the estimates; to understand
the difficulties/barriers (institutional/technical/financial) countries
face and what is needed to respond to the growing demand for adequate
and timely data to guide the design of policies aimed at reducing poverty
and for monitoring purpose. Attention will be given to the interplay between
national and international stakeholders in providing poverty data for
HDR, PRSP, CCA and the MDGR.
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