Annex IV. Use of Poverty Maps: Some Notable Achievements
The use of disaggregated poverty maps, in 14 developing
countries from Africa, Asia and Latin America, has brought
into focus the following highlights:
- Poverty maps have become important tools in implementing
poverty reduction programmes. Several international efforts
(such as the World Bank-initiated poverty reduction strategies
for Highly Indebted Poor Countries) as well as national
initiatives are relying on poverty maps for their targeted
programmes. One such example comes from Nicaragua, whose
poverty reduction strategy relies heavily on poverty maps
to allocate US$1.1 billion in capital spending over five
years (2001-2005). "
- Poverty maps help improve targeting of public expenditures
by identifying where the neediest populations are located.
For instance, in Guatemala, poverty mapping is being used
to restructure the National Public Investment System to
improve geographic targeting of hundreds of millions of
dollars (US$576 million in FY 2002) of annual expenditure.
- Emergency response and food aid programs are beginning
to make use of newer, more data-intensive mapping methods.
In South Africa, information from a poverty mapping initiative
was combined with data on sanitation and safe water supplies
to create a geo-referenced strategy for containing a cholera
outbreak in KwaZulu Natal province in early 2001. Implementation
of this strategy effectively contained the disease in
three months, with one of the lowest fatality rates (0.22%)
ever recorded. Cambodian poverty maps are being used to
identify the poorest communities for distribution of US$50
million (2001-2003) in World Food Programme food aid,
especially "food for work" interventions.
- In several countries, high-resolution poverty maps
are contributing to state- and local-level decision-making.
Brazil's largest state, Minas Gerais, is using poverty
maps to redistribute statewide tax revenues totalling
US$1 billion annually to poorer municipalities that are
making an effort to invest in health, education, sanitation,
and environmental conservation.
- In the cases studied, the production and distribution
of poverty maps resulted in increased transparency of
public decision-making, by raising awareness of poverty,
igniting policy debates at local and national levels,
and encouraging broader civil society participation in
decision-making. One such instance was reported from Panama,
where officials of the Social Investment Fund indicated
that the use of poverty maps in decision-making helped
them resist pressure from politicians to alter funding
allocations once they had been made.
Source: Where Are the Poor? Experiences with
the Development and Use of Poverty Maps. Norbert Henninger
and M. Snal, 2002, World Research Institute, Washington,
DC.
|
