Revised_jvr_21.11.2005
Whose Poverty? Making Poverty Mapping and Poverty Monitoring Participatory
LiXiaoyun
College of Humanities and Development, China Agricultural University
Introduction
In its report Poverty Trends and Voices of the Poor, the World Bank 2001 defines poverty as a multidimensional phenomenon, encompassing inability to satisfy basic needs, lack of control over resources, lack of education and skills, poor health, malnutrition, lack of shelter, poor access to water and sanitation, vulnerability to shocks, violence and crime, lack of political freedom and voice’ (p3). When confronted with such an omnibus definition, the potential heuristic power relating to the concept of poverty is locked behind intuitive processes. The effort needed to bridge the gap that remains between the concept as reflected in ‘the way that development agencies measure poverty’ and the reality of ‘how poor people experience and understand their poverty’, is not trivial. This paper is a contribution to this task.
Early in 2001, the Beijing office of the Asian Development Bank, in partnership with China State Council’s Leading Group Office for Poverty (LGOP), set about identifying a means by which the reality of poverty at the grass-roots, especially chronic hard-core poverty in village China, could be measured, monitored and addressed (3). This initiative, that has been dubbed CPAP, for County-administered Poverty Alleviation Planning (see Asian Development Bank project TA3610), involved a research process that not only identified a theoretical basis for a more participatory approach to poverty reduction planning in China, but also incorporated some fundamental village-level research to test a range of poverty indicators that could be used for poverty mapping, poverty reduction priority setting, and participatory monitoring of changes in the incidence of poverty (4). This paper reports on the results of these efforts in the belief that the findings are of general interest and readily replicable, cross-cultural and institutional differences between poor communities notwithstanding. The strategies involved are participatory, yet they are also objective and quantitative, leading to the design and calculation of a participatory poverty index. Moreover, the indicators of poverty, which have been identified by the poor, are also of a sort that facilitates an understanding of poverty in ways that are practical, relatively unequivocal in meaning, comparable across individuals, households, or communities, and easily monitored at the local level.
Background Trends in the Incidence of Poverty in Rural China
Whether one uses official Chinese statistics or World Bank measures, the decline in the incidence of poverty in China since 1980 is one of the great achievements in modern development. At the dawn of the opening of China to the harsh winds of global trade and international competition in 1978, the head-count index of persons below the poverty line showed that at least 250 million of China’s citizens were living below the local income-poverty line of just 60 cents per person per day. By the start of the new millennium in 2000, this number had been reduced to less than 50 million. If one applies the World Bank standard of $1 per person per day, the number of rural poor rises to around100 million, but even this figure records a substantial fall in both the relative and the absolute number of poor people in China (5).
Substantial gains in poverty reduction notwithstanding, official data on poverty trends in China since the mid 1990s also show that progress in reducing village poverty has not kept pace with growth in the rest of the economy, with the chronic rural poor failing to benefit from continued stellar growth rates in the macro-economy. The data strongly supports the conclusion that the poorest households in rural China are being increasingly marginalised. Progress in reducing the incidence of poverty in rural China appears to have stalled, possibly even reversed, since just before the turn of the century. In the latter years of the 1990s, for example, gross domestic product (GDP) increased at twice the pace of household income. This means that it is groups other than households that are garnering the lion’s share of the benefits of recent economic growth. Similarly in the rural sector, while agriculture’s contribution to GDP declined from 23% to 12% in the fifteen years since 1985, at the start of 2000, seventy percent of the rural labour force still found its primary employment in agriculture. The failure of the rural sector to realise more vital growth is reflected in the fact that during the same period, rural off-farm employment grew by less than five percent while the numbers employed in agriculture fell by ten percent. As rural unemployment increased, so did the pressures and incentives for rural people to migrate to urban areas in search of work and more secure livelihoods, making the challenge of labour mobility a key improved livelihood strategy for poor households (6).
The reasons for the slowing in the rate of rural poverty reduction in China since the late 1990s can be debated, but the consensus (7) appears to be that three main factors are responsible:
(i) ineffective poverty targeting, reflected in the rising proportion of public sector sourced poverty reduction resources that do not reach the poor; (ii) perverse fiscal policies that have led to taxation systems in which the poorest 20% of rural households are paying 50% of taxes collected in rural areas; and(iii) income inequality in the rural areas that has been estimated by the World Bank to have increased by 23% in the seven years to 1995. The CPAP research project done to test participatory approaches to poverty reduction planning in rural China, does not contradict these findings. The research did, however, add insights into how participatory strategies in poverty reduction planning can help redress the forces that threaten to accelerate the slide of poor villages in China into chronic hard-core poverty (8). The pilot studies done to test components of CPAP appear to show that the top-down nature of extant poverty mapping and poverty reduction planning does contributed significantly to the neglect of interventions that are directly relevant to poverty alleviation at village level. The top down approach has also aided the leakage of resources meant to have benefited poor villages. CPAP addresses these problems by significantly improving poverty targeting on the one hand; and enabling poverty interventions to be designed in ways that are of immediate benefit to poor households in poor villages.
A Participatory Approach to Poverty Mapping, Measurement and Monitoring
The CPAP approach to participatory poverty analysis and poverty reduction planning required the design and testing of a village-friendly set of poverty indicators. However, before one can test the general relevance and meaningfulness of alternative indicators to the poor in villages across China, one has first to allow poor villagers the opportunity to offer their insights.
Based on their daily familiarity with poverty, the poor in China’s chronically poor rural areas are the true experts on what it means to be poor. More importantly, however, the rural poor are well versed on the constraints that prevent them from escaping from their poverty and the opportunities that they would like to take up as investments in their own betterment if they had the opportunity. Consequently, they are also the best source of information on key areas of assistance they would like to have to help them escape poverty, be this assistance from the public sector, non-government organisations or the private sector. However, in approaching the poor to ask them their views on how best to measure or observe and monitor their poverty, the CPAP field trials showed that it is useful to illustrate what it is that is being asked. To this end, the CPAP research program reviewed the poverty literature to select-out poverty indicators reported there for the purposes of village poverty mapping, poor village rank ordering, and characteristics of poverty as manifest at household level. The process followed, which is unlikely to be comprehensive, identified 91 separate indicators, summarised in Table 1. For the purposes of this paper, these 91 indicators have been classified into nine distinct types of poverty, linked to the measure relevant to each indicator and the primary source of the data on each indicator.
Table 1:
Potential Poverty Indicators Drawn from the Literature on Poverty in China
Type of PovertyIndicatorMeasureMain Source
1. EnvironmentalNatural disastersFrequencyVillage officials
TypeVillage officials
Number of people affectedVillage officials
Vulnerability to misadventureIsolation Villagers
PollutionAir pollutionVillage officials
Water qualityVillage officials
Soil contaminationVillage officials
IsolationTime to access assistanceVillagers
Safety and securityIncidence of petty crimeVillage officials
Feelings of uncertaintyVillagers
2. GenderWomen leaders% Female heads of householdsVillagers
% of officials who are femaleVillage officials
DiscriminationFemale wages as % male wagesVillage women
Girl in school as % males in schoolVillage teacher
Women’s work constraintsVillage women
3. HumanSkills base% primary school graduatesVillage teacher
ResourcePrimary school participation rateVillage teachers
Secondary school participation rateVillage teachers
School participation rateVillage teachers
% households unable to pay feesVillagers
UnemploymentDays seeking work/monthVillagers
Wage labourNumber of days worked/monthVillagers
Health status% children immunisedHealth workers
% household that is able-bodiedVillagers
Women’s morbidity rateVillagers
Children’s morbidity rateVillagers
Number of disabledHealth workers
Nutritional status of femalesHealth workers
Nutritional status of malesHealth workers
Infant mortalityHealth workers
Morbidity ratesHealth workers
% of cash flow spent on healthVillagers
% of household that is HIV+veHealth workers
4. InfrastructureMarket accessTime to nearest marketVillage officials
Availability of all-weather roadVillagers
Energy availabilityRural electrificationVillagers
Information availabilityInformation sourcesVillagers
NewspapersVillagers
TelephonesVillage officials
RadioVillagers
TVVillagers
Community facilitiesAccess to a health/birthing centreHealth workers
Community libraryVillagers
Community sports-groundVillagers
Access to potable waterTime/distance to sourceVillagers
Access to sanitationNumber of latrinesVillagers
5. InstitutionalEducationDistance to SchoolVillagers
Literacy rateVillagers
School attendanceVillagers
Health facilityNumber of days availableHealth worker
FinanceSources of financeVillagers
Savings facilitiesVillagers
Poverty transfers per householdVillage officials
Poverty loans per householdVillagers
6. LivelihoodSubsistence productionNumber of months of deprivationVillagers
Number of crops per yearVillagers
Crop yield per hectareVillagers
Average grain output/person/yearVillagers
Area of arable land per householdVillagers
Market activityCash-needs/Cash-flow availabilityVillagers
Average cash receipts/person/yearVillagers
% of production marketedVillagers
Value of remittances receivedVillagers
Self-employmentNumber of functioning enterprisesVillagers
Number of employeesVillagers
Value of household productionVillagers
Value of paid employmentVillagers
Consumption standards% income spent on foodVillagers
Capacity to saveVillagers
Wealth creationQuality of housingVillagers
Total household debt Villagers
Debt owed to governmentVillagers
Debt owed to family and friendsVillagers
Commercial debt outstandingVillagers
Household assetsVillagers
Number of functioning enterprisesVillagers
Area of land ownedVillagers
Area of land rentedVillagers
7. NaturalType of resource% area that is arableVillage officials
Resource% of area that is hillyVillage officials
Area lost to soil erosion annuallyVillage officials
Months of water stressVillage officials
Employment in resource miningVillage officials
Value of resource salesVillage officials
8. PoliticalParticipationVillage governance structureVillagers
Sources of local government fundsVillage officials
Human rightsAccountability perceptionsVillagers
Incidence of local corruptionVillagers
Discrimination% of ethnic minority householdsVillagers
Legal constraints to mobilityVillage officials
Registration requirementsVillage officials
9. Social CapitalCommunity NetworksNumber of active community groupsVillage officials
Number of volunteer activitiesVillagers
Sources of emergency assistanceVillage officials
Due processNumber of legal procedures begunVillage officials
The indicators shown in Table 1 provided the CPAP team with a wealth of examples of different indicators that researchers have used to measure and monitor the incidence of poverty. Only eight of these indicators, however, proved really meaningful to the poor villagers engaged in the CPAP trials. These eight indicators, hereafter referred to as the participatory poverty indicators because they are the results of extensive consultations with poor villagers, are highlighted in bold script in Table 1. It is important to note that the eight participatory poverty indicators that villagers consistently chose to describe their poverty cover only three of the nine types of poverty shown in Table 1. For convenience, the eight participatory poverty indicators and the three types of poverty they refer to are summarised in Table 2.
Table 2:
Eight Participatory Poverty Indicators Covering Three Types of Poverty
Type of PovertyParticipatory Poverty IndicatorKey source
I. Human Resource Poverty
Skills base1. School participation rateVillagers & teachers
Health status2. Women’s morbidity rateVillagers & health workers
II. Infrastructure Poverty
Market access3. Availability of all-weather roadVillagers
Energy availability4. Rural electrificationVillagers
Potable water availability5. Time/distance to sourceVillagers
III. Livelihood Poverty
Subsistence production6. Average grain output/person/yearVillagers
Market activity7. Average cash receipts/person/yearVillagers
Wealth creation8. Quality of housingVillagers
The significance of these three types of poverty and eight associated indicators, is that it is this combination of indicators that hundreds of poor villagers consistently chose to best describe how poverty is experienced by poor households in village China, when asked to identify how poverty is manifest in their daily lives. This is not to say that villagers consulted as part of the CPAP field tests and trials did not identify other indicators; they did. However, there is very real significance to the fact that it is these three types of poverty and these eight indicators of these three types of poverty that have been constants in responses received from poor villagers, officials from poor villages, and county officials responsible for the administration of publicly funded poverty reduction policies in poor villages. It is this subset of participatory poverty indictors that forms the basis of CPAP poverty analysis and the construction of a participatory poverty index (PPI).
When the first trials of CPAP were undertaken in Fengning County, Hebei Province, a series of 11 group meetings were held during which poor villagers, plus village, township and county officials were consulted on their views on how best to measure and monitor poverty, and how best to address the problems that give rise to their poverty. Fengning County was chosen as the key site for the CPAP trials because this county was judged by the LGOP as not only poor by national standards, but also subject to environmental fragility. It had recently been visited by members of the State Council as a key poor working county severely effect by drought for the past several years. All nine of the group meetings were held in separate villages reputation for being among the poorest in the county.
In each of the nine villages, open meetings were held with all villagers invited. The smallest of these meetings has 20 villagers in attendance, not including officials. At times the meetings resembled a social gathering as individuals shared anecdotes and animatedly discussed and argued the point they were trying to make. A single meeting could easily extend through the whole morning or the afternoon, which for some participants meant it was a moveable feast as they came and went in response to the needs of their children or other duties. Village participants, representing a cross-section of the livelihood types of household in the village, were joined by the village leader, the village accountant, the village teacher, the village health worker, and the village women's group leader. Typically each village meeting was held in the village primary school or health centre. Two further township meetings were also held, involving almost 200 county and township representatives from the 26 villages with the reputation as the poorest among Fengning County's 309 villages.
The purposes of the meetings held at village and township levels was to explore with participants their views on the best means by which to measure poverty and monitor changes in the incidence of poverty. The results of these consultations are summarized in Table 3.
Table 3:
Poverty Indicators Selected by 180 Poor Villagers and 252 Village and County Officials, Fengning County, Hebei Province, China
Priority Accorded By:
122 Fengning78 Township180 Poor
Poverty IndicatorCounty andVillagers
inOfficials52 Villagefrom
Rank OrderOfficials9 Villages
1. Cash receipts per person per year211
2. Grain production per person per year122
3. Access to an all-weather access road533
4. Easy access to quality drinking water464
5. House quality (roof and exterior walls)357
6. Access to reliable electricity supply648
7. Days lost due to women’s ill health775
8. Children’s access to education886
9. Average arable land per person4109
10. Frequency of natural disasters0911
11. Availability of irrigation9120
12. Degraded local ecology0010
13. Access to poverty loans0110
The rank order of poverty indicators shown in Table 3 was arrived at after lengthy consultations with each respondent group. It is significant that respondents chose to ignore the great majority of the indicators in Table 1 above. It is even more significant that there is a complete overlap in the top eight indicators selected by each group, differences in ranking notwithstanding. This outcome has been crucial for the design and further development of CPAP as a practical and meaningful approach to the use of participatory strategies in the design, implementation and impact monitoring of village poverty reduction policies in China.
The differences in the indicator rankings shown in Table 3 are worth highlighting. First, the very much higher priority given by poor villagers to the existence of an all-weather access road is indicative of the influence that such an asset has on those who suffer most when access to nearby markets, emergency assistance, off-farm job opportunities, etc., is restricted because of transport and communications constraints. In like manner, the higher priority given by poor villagers to the importance of the health of the able bodied women in their households can be directly linked to the critical role that poor villagers recognize is played by women in household livelihood, household asset creation and household resource management activities. Villagers and village officials place a higher ranking on the importance of access to cash flow at household level than do township officials. The difference between them is not great, but this difference is likely to be an hangover from the days when village livelihoods were largely subsistence based and the use of cash to facilitate economic transactions in rural China was minimal.