Poverty maps, spatial descriptions of the distribution of poverty in any given country, are most useful to policy makers and researchers when they represent small geographic units, such as cities, towns, or villages.

Unfortunately, almost all household surveys are too small to be representative at such levels of disaggregation, and most census data do not contain the required information to calculate poverty.

A small team of researchers in the Development Research Group, Poverty Cluster (DECRG-PO) have developed a methodology to estimate welfare indicators for small areas and piloted it with success in several countries, such as Ecuador, Kenya, Madagascar, Nicaragua, and South Africa.

The team provides technical assistance, capacity building, and various free software tools to statistical institutes in developing countries upon demand, conditional upon availability of suitable data (a recent census and a LSMS-type household survey).

Furthermore, the team is currently working on developing a “how-to manual” for poverty mapping, platform-independent software tools, and training courses aimed at staff from statistical institutes and researchers from developing countries. Training, along with user-friendly tools and technical assistance should make poverty maps accessible for a wider range of countries in the near future.

Core Team
Peter Lanjouw, Johan Mistiaen, Berk Ozler
Email: research@worldbank.org.

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This 2007 volume promotes the effective use of Small Area Estimation poverty maps in policy making. It presents the range of policies and interventions which have been informed by poverty maps, focusing on the political economy of poverty maps and the key elements to their effective use by policy makers. The volume also looks at the future of poverty maps in terms of new techniques and new areas of application.