Poverty Mapping

Poverty maps are spatial representations of poverty assessments. A variety of assessments or indicators of poverty can be used, including: indicators of income related poverty (e.g. GDP per capita), indicators of well-being (e.g. life expectancy, child mortality, or literacy rates). These data are most frequently available from national censuses, where the comprehensive coverage enables maps of an entire region or country to be created using information of uniform quality and consistency.

Why Use Poverty Maps? Participatory GIS References and Further Reading

A poverty map is a geographical representation that shows where poverty is concentrated in a
country or region, and therefore where relevant policies might have the greatest impact on reducing poverty.

Poverty maps allow for a relatively easy and intuitive comparison of indicators of poverty with a range of other data that are also available in a spatial format or have spatial dimensions. These include any social and economic information that are for example collected at a village level. It also includes a wide range of infrastructural and physical information, such as access to infrastructure or services, availability and condition of natural resources, and distribution of transport and communications facilities. Many of these can be quantified in terms of the distance to a road, market centre, or other geographical feature.

Specifically, poverty maps help to provide information on the spatial distribution of poverty, or indicators of poverty. This assists with the targeting of interventions or development projects. The ability to analyze relationships between different data sources in a spatial context may also provide important insights into cause and effect that are not readily accessible in any other means of analysis. For example, analyzing data related to rural poverty with respect to distance of households from all-weather roads and from urban centres provides important insights into the nature and impact of the potential marketing infrastructure afforded by these facilities. Much of this analysis is carried out using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software on PCs. Use of these systems provides the following advantages:

• GIS based poverty analysis makes it easier to integrate poverty data from various sources.
  
• Spatially referenced information can free analysis from the restrictions of fixed geographical boundaries. For instance, data can be converted from administrative to ecological boundaries which are often more meaningful in a natural resources management context.
  
• Mapped information on the levels and distribution of poverty make the results of analysis more easily understandable to a non-specialist audience, including policy makers.

Using these techniques, an LPP & AHP research project (see R7050) was able to demonstrate that illegal hunting of wildlife in Serengeti National Park, Tanzania, was closely tied to income-related poverty. This was correlated with a lack of opportunities for earning cash from producing marketable produce or from trading (requiring adequate roads and access to market centres), and also demonstrated the vital importance of smallstock (sheep, goats and poultry) to poorer rural households.

Another example where the techniques of poverty mapping have been extensively used is illustrated by the publication Mapping Poverty and Livestock in the Developing World.

 

Participatory GIS, or PGIS, is a method that is closely related to Poverty Mapping, in that both methods use Geographic Information Systems technology, and which also merges a range of participatory methods with computer generated mapping techniques.

Participatory GIS is based on using geo-spatial or map-based information management tools ranging from sketch maps, aerial photographs, satellite imagery, Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to combine peoples’ spatial knowledge in the forms of 2 or 3 dimensional maps. See Abbot et al. (1998) for an introduction and example of participatory GIS. These maps can be used interactively during discussions, or more commonly used as paper copies that are subsequently updated using computer-based mapping technology.

An important consideration is the ability to the the products from Participatory GIS for information exchange and data analysis, and also as support in advocacy and decision making. Although the process is more complex and dependant on the availability of technology and trained individuals, when influencing discussions with decision makers, the power of a GIS-based and spatially correct map product is greatly superior to the simpler participatory sketch maps. However, the methods are complimentary - participatory sketch maps can lead to a more formal, GIS-based and spatially correct map product, which can subsequently be used in the field as a starting point for more detailed participatory discussions.

GIS is a technology particularly suited to livestock related issues. The ability to hold data on livestock distribution, types and numbers, together with information on the distribution and numbers of people, infrastructure and services results in a powerful planning tool. Participatory GIS enables a more bottom-up approach and haps to ensure a greater accuracy of representation of local issues. When combined with information on rainfall (or lack of it) and seasonal climate fluctuations GIS can be used as a powerful component of Famine Early Warning Systems. When combined with epidemiological and other disease related information, and with a disease reporting and surveillance system, these tools become indispensable in combating diseases, especially new and emerging disease problems.