quick poverty assessment tools

[Judith D'Souza]

Dear community members

I will be going on a project design mission where I will need to do quick assessments of poverty levels in many villages with groups. Though good poverty assessments take time, I need some ideas for quick time-efficient ways to do participatory assessments. Would love to hear from any one if they have any ideas.

Thanks

Judith

 

[Rituu B Nanda]

Hi Judith,

I have no experience in this area and therefore have sent a request to the community.

Warmly,

Rituu

[Saeid Nouri Neshat]

In a community-based poverty reduction project in Iran, where I was involved as a trainer/facilitator (and not in an evaluation team), I found that the focus of the participatory evaluation was on the capacities of the community group. The group had to have enough capacity to continue and deal with poverty issues in their own community. They used FGD with certain questions (I do not have the questions) and with participation of all group members and some of the community members. I do not have more information.

[Ranjani K.Murthy]

Hi judith. nice to see you here. I think I used this in WB when you were there with me but not sure. 

Gender integrated wealth ranking

Objectives:

• To ascertain changes in economic status of households during the programme or project period, and explore reasons for these changes
• To explore whether headship has a bearing on economic status of households as well as how much women headed households have been able to benefit out of the project/programme
• To explore whether caste, religion, ethnicity, disability and land holding have a bearing on how much households have been able to benefit out of the project
• To explore non project/programme factors (in particular gender specific ones) that have had a bearing on changes in economic status over time

Assumption

There is gender, class, caste, ethnicity, religion and other stratification which mediate economic well-being of households and how far women can benefit out of a project/programmes. The extent of economic benefit derived by a household out of a project or programme is best captured through a participatory exercise.

Methodology

Changes in wealth/economic ranking entails participatory mapping of what changes have occurred in economic status of participant household during the project period, and the reasons for the same.

Method 

1. Request the women participants (around 20 to 25) to bring stones of four different sizes.
2. Place the stones in a straight line
3. Explain that the small stone signifies the very poor, the second big one the poor, the third big stone moderately off and the fourth stone the economically rich.
4. Ask the participants what criteria they would adopt to classify a household as very poor, poor, moderate and economically rich.
5. 5.       Ask the participants to classify themselves into one of these categories. Give each of them a piece of paper or a card.  Request them to draw land on the paper if they have land, draw livestock if they have, indicate the nature of housing, use a particular colour pen if they come from a marginalised community and use a particular symbol if heading the household.
6. 6.       If it is not culturally appropriate to find out caste, ethnicity, headship etc do it later taking the support of the community worker of the implementing agency.
7. 7.       Ask the participants what was their economic status before joining the project/programme
8. 8.       If there has been an improvement or deterioration, explore the reasons- both project/programme related and those which do not relate to the project.  
9. 9.       Help the participants discern patterns- Who has benefitted most? Who has deteriorated most? Landed or landless, women heading households or women in male headed households, dalits/Adivasis/Muslims or the upper castes?
10. 10.   Help the participants identify gender specific reasons for improvement or deterioration (e.g. dowry, alcoholism, desertion/divorce etc.)
11. 11.   Find out interventions that are necessary for those who are very poor or poor now to come out of their poverty in a sustained manner.  

Time required

One and a half hours

Materials required

Stones of four different sizes

Cards

Adapted from

Program on Forests (PROFOR),n.d, Tool 1: Wealth ranking: Conducted with the Village Leadership, http://www.profor.info/sites/profor.info/files/PFL_Tool_01_07-01.pdf Last accessed February 19th, 2013

 

Illustration

Economic ranking in a predominantly Muslim village: Eastern UP

Economic Category		No. of members across different categories at present	No of members across different categories before group formation
Very poor		Nil	4
Poor		2	3
Moderate		8	3
Rich Total		2 12	2 12

 

Total number of households improved: 11

Profile of households improved:

-          Women headed households (Saithwar community): 03

-          SC  households: Not applicable

-          Minority households: 8

 

Number of HHs improved because of SHG-micro credit activities: 03

Number of HHs improved because of SHG-micro credit with agricultural/activities: 08

Number improved because of agricultural activities alone: Nil

Number improved because of other factors: Nil

Total number of persons deteriorated:  1

No. deteriorated because of failure of activities initiated with group loan Nil

No. deteriorated because of failure of other GEAG activities Nil

No. deteriorated because of other reasons 1 (Dowry)

Source: GEAG, 2004, Wealth ranking exercise with Peerbaba SHG formed by Gorakhpur Environment Action Group,  in Tenua Vishambharpur SHG 2004 (mimeo),

 REFERENCE 

MURTHY, forthcoming, Toolkit for Participatory and Gender Aware Evaluation Methods, Indian Social Studies Trust,  New Delhi

[Dr. SRIDHAR SEETHARAMAN]

Respected Group Colleague,

Glad to know that you are undertaking a poverty assessment survey of villages dominated by Self Help Groups.   One of the quickest measure of Poverty Assessment  has been the Per Capita Expenditure Pattern in a family and then grade them.  This is the fastest measure that we have today and would enable one to know also where the expenditure is flowing.  Any further clarification, if needed, could be provided. Wishing you the best of luck in your research. 

Sridhar.

[Pramod Sharma]

Dear Members,

Greetings!

Participatory methods are good as other members have said.

Poverty ranking or wealth ranking  can be done in villages with different groups or with  4-5 key informants. 

Household survey is also an option. I have found some material during my search on internet. which I am sharing with you.

http://www.povertytools.org/

In my opinion, Combination of a survey with participatory wealth ranking is a good. 

In participatory methods many times people (group)  care too much about person's historic background and other social factors.

Regards,

Pramod

[Joseph Robert BUGEMBE]

Depending on your specific poverty info needs p'se remember to capture data using the 4 categories of PRA tools useful for participatory poverty assessment - tools for Spatial Analysis [access to resources and services]; Time trend Analysis [determine the variables to subject to analysis and the time frame(s) within which comparisons will be made]; Relational Analysis [e.g. the relative importance and relationships between and among institutions, livelihood strategies, etc]; and Priority Analysis [of needs, challenges and actions/interventions etc]...    

[Judith D'Souza]

Thanks Rituu for posting this.

Judith

Rituu B Nanda said:

Hi Judith,

I have no experience in this area and therefore have sent a request to the community.

Warmly,

Rituu

[Judith D'Souza]

Thanks Ranjani, Yes I remember this in the WB mission but had forgot the finer details .. Will need to tweak it a bit to suit a design mission.

Judith

Ranjani K.Murthy said:

Hi judith. nice to see you here. I think I used this in WB when you were there with me but not sure. 

Gender integrated wealth ranking

Objectives:

• To ascertain changes in economic status of households during the programme or project period, and explore reasons for these changes
• To explore whether headship has a bearing on economic status of households as well as how much women headed households have been able to benefit out of the project/programme
• To explore whether caste, religion, ethnicity, disability and land holding have a bearing on how much households have been able to benefit out of the project
• To explore non project/programme factors (in particular gender specific ones) that have had a bearing on changes in economic status over time

Assumption

There is gender, class, caste, ethnicity, religion and other stratification which mediate economic well-being of households and how far women can benefit out of a project/programmes. The extent of economic benefit derived by a household out of a project or programme is best captured through a participatory exercise.

Methodology

Changes in wealth/economic ranking entails participatory mapping of what changes have occurred in economic status of participant household during the project period, and the reasons for the same.

Method 

1. Request the women participants (around 20 to 25) to bring stones of four different sizes.
2. Place the stones in a straight line
3. Explain that the small stone signifies the very poor, the second big one the poor, the third big stone moderately off and the fourth stone the economically rich.
4. Ask the participants what criteria they would adopt to classify a household as very poor, poor, moderate and economically rich.
5. 5.       Ask the participants to classify themselves into one of these categories. Give each of them a piece of paper or a card.  Request them to draw land on the paper if they have land, draw livestock if they have, indicate the nature of housing, use a particular colour pen if they come from a marginalised community and use a particular symbol if heading the household.
6. 6.       If it is not culturally appropriate to find out caste, ethnicity, headship etc do it later taking the support of the community worker of the implementing agency.
7. 7.       Ask the participants what was their economic status before joining the project/programme
8. 8.       If there has been an improvement or deterioration, explore the reasons- both project/programme related and those which do not relate to the project.  
9. 9.       Help the participants discern patterns- Who has benefitted most? Who has deteriorated most? Landed or landless, women heading households or women in male headed households, dalits/Adivasis/Muslims or the upper castes?
10. 10.   Help the participants identify gender specific reasons for improvement or deterioration (e.g. dowry, alcoholism, desertion/divorce etc.)
11. 11.   Find out interventions that are necessary for those who are very poor or poor now to come out of their poverty in a sustained manner.  

Time required

One and a half hours

Materials required

Stones of four different sizes

Cards

Adapted from

Program on Forests (PROFOR),n.d, Tool 1: Wealth ranking: Conducted with the Village Leadership, http://www.profor.info/sites/profor.info/files/PFL_Tool_01_07-01.pdf Last accessed February 19th, 2013

 

 

Illustration

Economic ranking in a predominantly Muslim village: Eastern UP

Economic Category		No. of members across different categories at present	No of members across different categories before group formation
Very poor		Nil	4
Poor		2	3
Moderate		8	3
Rich Total		2 12	2 12

 

Total number of households improved: 11

Profile of households improved:

-          Women headed households (Saithwar community): 03

-          SC  households: Not applicable

-          Minority households: 8

 

Number of HHs improved because of SHG-micro credit activities: 03

Number of HHs improved because of SHG-micro credit with agricultural/activities: 08

Number improved because of agricultural activities alone: Nil

Number improved because of other factors: Nil

Total number of persons deteriorated:  1

No. deteriorated because of failure of activities initiated with group loan Nil

No. deteriorated because of failure of other GEAG activities Nil

No. deteriorated because of other reasons 1 (Dowry)

Source: GEAG, 2004, Wealth ranking exercise with Peerbaba SHG formed by Gorakhpur Environment Action Group,  in Tenua Vishambharpur SHG 2004 (mimeo),

 REFERENCE 

MURTHY, forthcoming, Toolkit for Participatory and Gender Aware Evaluation Methods, Indian Social Studies Trust,  New Delhi

[Judith D'Souza]

Thanks Saeid. This will be with a group who have not had prior experience with these forms of assessments nor any experience with NGOs etc.

Judith
Saeid Nouri Neshat said:

In a community-based poverty reduction project in Iran, where I was involved as a trainer/facilitator (and not in an evaluation team), I found that the focus of the participatory evaluation was on the capacities of the community group. The group had to have enough capacity to continue and deal with poverty issues in their own community. They used FGD with certain questions (I do not have the questions) and with participation of all group members and some of the community members. I do not have more information.

[Judith D'Souza]

Dear Dr , Thanks for the tip. The villages dont have prior experience with NGOs so I guess even less information on SHGSs. But I think there is the potential to use the per capita expenditure and will see how to tweak it in.

Judith

Dr. SRIDHAR SEETHARAMAN said:

Respected Group Colleague,

Glad to know that you are undertaking a poverty assessment survey of villages dominated by Self Help Groups.   One of the quickest measure of Poverty Assessment  has been the Per Capita Expenditure Pattern in a family and then grade them.  This is the fastest measure that we have today and would enable one to know also where the expenditure is flowing.  Any further clarification, if needed, could be provided. Wishing you the best of luck in your research. 

Sridhar.

[Judith D'Souza]

Thanks Pramod.

Pramod Sharma said:

Dear Members,

Greetings!

Participatory methods are good as other members have said.

Poverty ranking or wealth ranking  can be done in villages with different groups or with  4-5 key informants. 

Household survey is also an option. I have found some material during my search on internet. which I am sharing with you.

http://www.povertytools.org/

In my opinion, Combination of a survey with participatory wealth ranking is a good. 

In participatory methods many times people (group)  care too much about person's historic background and other social factors.

Regards,

Pramod

[Judith D'Souza]

Thanks Joseph. Will keep this in mind when developing the tools

Judith

Joseph Robert BUGEMBE said:

Depending on your specific poverty info needs p'se remember to capture data using the 4 categories of PRA tools useful for participatory poverty assessment - tools for Spatial Analysis [access to resources and services]; Time trend Analysis [determine the variables to subject to analysis and the time frame(s) within which comparisons will be made]; Relational Analysis [e.g. the relative importance and relationships between and among institutions, livelihood strategies, etc]; and Priority Analysis [of needs, challenges and actions/interventions etc]...