The geographical distribution of poverty and food security in Bangladesh:

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The geographical distribution of poverty and food
security in Bangladesh

• Implications for the design of policy
  agricultural RDE interventions

IRRI ISNAR/WAU - BARC
POVERTY FOOD INSECURITY MAPPING CASE STUDIES
WORKSHOP 6-9 March 2002
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Bangladesh the country

• Land area of 144,600 km2
• Population of 120 million
• Population density 830 persons/km2
• 80 live in rural areas
• Arable land base 0.075 ha/person
• Ave. farm size 1.43 ha in 1961, 0.87 ha in 1994
• Head count index 51
• High vulnerability to floods typhoons

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Vulnerability due to environmental risk
BANGLADESH
Cartographic Model
Flooding hazard
Depth of inundation
LEGEND
Unclassified
High risk
Moderate
Low risk
Very low risk
Data source BARC, IRRI Dhaka
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Problem Definition
Who defines the problem the stakeholder or the
researcher?

• What we think might be the problem/use
• Better understanding of the nature of poverty for
  determining appropriate interventions
• Agricultural RDE priorities
• Accompanying interventions to increase
  effectiveness of agricultural development
  programs
• What national decision makers think they could
  have use of
• To be determined through consultation

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Approach

• i

Almanac of human well-being
Map weighted indices of poverty/need/vulnerability
Stakeholder ranking Ask stakeholders to rank
indicators in their perceived order of importance

• Create spatially coherent database
• basic layers
• single variable indicators

Identify where priority areas do not correspond
understand why they dont
Probit analysis Use regression coefficients from
probit analysis of HIE survey data and
corresponding area characteristics
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Many facets of human well-being

• i

• Economic well-being
• Income expenditure
• Household assets

• Accessibility
• Markets, social services
• Information/technology
• Alternative income sources

• Non-economic well-being
• Health nutritional level
• Literacy

Spatial distribution of human well-being

• Resource endowment
• Land area quality
• Ownership/tenancy relationship
• Technology input level
• Agric productivity

• Vulnerability
• Environmental constraints
• growing period, drought, submergence
• Environmental hazards
• flood, typhoon

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Stakeholder ranking

• Conduct survey of decision makers
• Ask them to rank different indicators of
  well-being
• Convert ranks to weights for m indicators
• W1,,Wm
• Compute map weighted scores
• Sj ?i Wi ? Iij i 1,, m indicators
• j 1,, n areas

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Probit analysis

• Probability that a household is poor (i.e. below
  poverty level z)
• Pyij?z where yij is the income of the ith
  household residing in the jth community
• Do probit analysis of Pyij?z in terms of
  household and area characteristics
• Pyij?z f(?1j?mj ?1j?kj)
• i 1,, m indicators
• j 1,,n community
• Use coefficients ?1?k of variables ?1?k to
  compute map weighted index
• Vj ?i ?i ? Aij j 1,,n

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Comparison of scores indices

• Create comparison map of Sj and Vij
• Identify areas of low correspondence
• Characterize these areas to determine why
  correspondence is low

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Who does what in Bangladesh

• BARC agro-ecological zoning
• SRDI soils data base
• LGED infrastructure and administrative
  boundaries
• BBS census (1993/94, 1999/2000) socio-economic
  surveys (HES, etc.)
• BIDS socio-economic surveys, policy analysis
• DHS?
• The challenge is to bring these institutions
  together process the data for computing
  measures of human well-being

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Passing on to users

• Key agencies to be involved in the project
• Data sets analytical tools remain with them
• Capacity to develop other applications
• Data sets approved for distribution to be
  disseminated using client-preferred digital
  printed media

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Thank you ... and we welcome constructive
ideas to improve the suggested approach
methodology