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Fridays Academy (2): What is poverty and how do we measure it?

Ignacio Hernandez's picture

This is the second posting in the Fridays Academy series. This series is based on the lecture notes on Economic Policies for Growth and Poverty Reduction, by Raj Nallari. We will post a note every Friday.


What is Poverty and how do we measure it?

  • To design effective policies and strategies aimed at reducing poverty, it is critical to understand the characteristics of poverty in a country or in a geographic area. Adequate Poverty measurement techniques are essential.  

  • To measure poverty we need to define well-being. This is often done looking only at the monetary aspects of poverty. Non monetary dimensions are equally important.

  • Finally, there is no perfect measure of well-being or poverty. This does not mean we should avoid measuring poverty, but it does argue for approaching poverty measures with a degree of caution, and for analyzing carefully how the measures are constructed.

Percentage of population living with less than US$ 1 a day

Percentage of population living with less than US$1 a day


Read the whole note by Raj Nallari.


Next Friday: steps in measuring poverty.


Submitted by KNS Nair on
Percentage of population living with less than US$ 1 a day The world map provides a snapshot of global distribution of poverty. A number of countries including Somalia are left out due to lack of data. Preliminary poverty estimates for Somalia are now available. Please see . The specific reference is Somalia socio-economic survey 2002 jointly published by WB and UNDP. KNS Nair Programme Manager Poverty Reduction and Sustainable Livelihood UNDP Somalia

Submitted by Anonymous on
Poverty is due to not having a budget and not controlling your expenses, in this world no one has come with wealth everyone has to learn all the way of living and other significance of life. It is true that some have inherited their ancestors property but the world is full of many examples, the person who hadnt anything and they will succeed in their life. So dont thing that it is only financial aspects thats why progress is not made it is not true being in any state you can achieve your goal you just need to have a strong will power.

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