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Press
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UNESCAP News Services
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18 August 2003
Press Release No: G/08/2003
EXPERTS MEET IN BANGKOK TO FORMULATE ACTION
PLAN ON POVERTY MAPPING AND MONITORING
Bangkok (UN Information Services) -- A multidisciplinary
group of policy-makers, scientists, academicians, information
technologists, and development practitioners will meet from
18-20 August 2003 at the United Nations Conference Centre in
Bangkok, Thailand, to formulate an action plan to strengthen
poverty mapping and monitoring.
The meeting is jointly organized jointly by UNESCAP's
Poverty and Development Division, Information, Communications
and Space Technology Division and Statistics Division.
Poverty mapping is a spatial representation of
indicators of human well-being and poverty, and serves as tools
for targeting poverty reduction programmes. According to UNESCAP,
it has emerged as one of the powerful tools available to both
ensure that resources on poverty reduction reach those who need
them most and to pinpoint places where development lags behind.
"It can highlight the location and condition
of infrastructure and natural resource assets that are critical
to poverty reduction. With this knowledge, policymakers can
deploy highly targeted poverty reduction programmes and interventions
to reach the neediest people," said Mr. Raj Kumar, Chief
of UNESCAP's Poverty and Development Division.
The overall objective of the meeting is to strengthen
poverty mapping and monitoring, and to assist policy-makers
in designing effective and efficient targeted poverty reduction
programmes.
Representatives from 11 developing countries in
Asia, the Asian Development Bank, International Rice Research
Institute, Asian Institute of Technology, and various international
and United Nations organizations include Food and Agriculture
Organization, United Nations Development Programme, World Food
Program, and World Bank will attend.
Besides visual representation, poverty maps can
also highlight distribution and condition of many assets that
are key to poverty reduction, such as agro-biological resources
and ownership, and road networks providing access to markets,
schools and health clinics. They allow analyses of geographical
units according to agro-climatic zone and access to infrastructure
and public services.
For further information please contact:
United Nations Information Services
Tel: (+662) 288-1862; Fax: (+662) 288-1052
E-mail: unisbkk.unescap@un.org
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