Yeaj

CHAPTER 7
CONCLUSIONS
Tell the officials in the city that the money meant for the poor never reaches us. If they want to give assistance, they must give it directly to us and not through those men. —A poor widow, Pakistan 1993
The central story of this review is about the tenacity of social norms, unequal distribution of power, and the indomitable spirit of poor people. Despite the hard work of the poor themselves, the commitment of thousands of dedicated people within developing countries and international development agencies, and billions of dollars spent by national governments and international development assistance, there are more poor people today than at the beginning of the decade. The ineffectiveness and irrelevance of well-intentioned government programs lead poor people to conclude that “the state is absent from our lives” (Madagascar 1996). The core message from poor people is a plea for direct assistance to them, without exploitative and corrupt “middlemen” and free of well-intended but often wasteful development programs. They call for systemic change.
How this can be done is the central challenge that confronts us at the brink of the twentieth century.
This final chapter first discusses briefly the power of institutions and social norms and summarizes eight key findings from the review. It then identifies three elements of a change strategy that could empower poor women and men to shape and negotiate new relations with their governments, civil society, and those with whom they trade so that they have the freedom to participate in society on their own terms.

Institutions and Power
We poor people are invisible to others, just as blind people cannot see, they cannot see us —Pakistan 1993
Sen coined the term economic and social “regress” to describe increased destitution and decreased well-being among poor groups in an age of unprecedented global prosperity
(Sen 1993). Trends in this regress are given form and context throughout the narratives in the PPAs. Social norms and institutions are the key obstacles faced by poor women and men as they attempt to eke out a livelihood against the odds. Poor people’s experiences demonstrate again and again that informal rules or social norms are deeply embedded in society, and that “rules in use” override formal rules.
It is precisely because of the embeddedness of social norms that change in one part of a bureaucratic social system cannot bring about systemic changes. In fact, a change in one part of a system merely creates resistance in the system until “order” is restored. This phenomenon is evident at all levels from the household to national level.
Poor people’s experiences reflect fundamental inequities in power among different social groups, and a lack of “bridges” or horizontal linkages between those more powerful and

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those less powerful. It is no surprise that in this institutional environment the experiences of poor people are characterized by lack of power and voice. Promotion of voice and empowerment of poor people in these circumstances becomes the central task.

Findings
This section highlights eight findings that illustrate why it is so difficult to reach poor people through development programs. It is important to stress that the findings emerged from an inductive process of content analysis of 78 Participatory Poverty Assessments conducted in 47 countries. Whether the topic was poverty, institutions, or gender relations, the process did not start with a presumed set of answers — the patterns emerged through systematic analysis.
Poverty and Powerlessness
Poverty is humiliation, the sense of being dependent on them, and of being forced to accept rudeness, insults, and indifference when we seek help.
—Latvia 1998
Poor people, including the newly impoverished poor in Central Asia and Eastern Europe, describe poverty as the lack of food and assets, the powerlessness that stems from dependency on others, and the helplessness to protect themselves from exploitation and abuse because of their dependence. Lack of food and unemployment are mentioned almost everywhere. The rich are defined as those with one job, and the poor as those rich in many dangerous jobs. In rural Africa and Asia the poor are defined as those who have to sell their produce at low prices to the rich and later buy it back at high prices because they need immediate cash and lack storage facilities; or those who work long hours for low wages because they have no bargaining power. Agricultural wage laborers are seen as the most exploited, often trapped in inter-generational debt. Poor people say that their interactions with both the state and with employers are marred by rudeness and humiliation. In Georgia, people equate poverty with the lack of freedom — they feel enslaved by their crushing daily burdens, by depression, by fear of what the future will bring. Analysis of definitions of poverty reveals that these psychological dimensions are central to poor people’s definitions of poverty. Tranquility brought about by peace is important to poor people, even when poverty does not decrease (Guatemala 1997b). Maintaining social traditions, hospitality, reciprocity, rituals, and festivals are central to poor people’s defining themselves as humans, despite dehumanizing economic and environmental realities. “Without these simple humane signs of solidarity, our lives would be unbearable,” said a poor woman in Ukraine (1996).
The lack of basic infrastructure, particularly roads, transport, and water are seen as defining characteristics of poverty. “Where a road passes, development follows right on its heels,” said an old man in Cameroon (1995). Roads and transportation both increase physical and social connectedness and increase prices obtained for crops and products.
Roads even to the next village are seen as expanding people’s options and access to

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services. Access to clean drinking water and water for irrigation frequently emerges as a distinguishing characteristic between the poor and the rich.
Illness is dreaded all over the world. For poor people dependant on their daily labor, with few cash or other reserves, severe illness can throw a whole family into destitution. “If you don’t have money today, your disease will take you to your grave,” said an old man in Ghana (1995a). Medical fees, transport costs, the need to bribe health staff to receive treatment and to put up with rude and callous behavior emerge as major problems throughout the world. In the Philippines, a young mother found herself “holding and singing lullabies to my baby until she died in my arms” (Philippines 1999). In Vietnam, a poor woman said that the death of one person allowed the others to live; while in many countries in Eastern Europe, poor people say that they had to choose between spending money either on medical services that may not cure the patient or on expenses for burials.
In Georgia, residents in one area have a new saying: “The sick do not have the right to live” (Georgia 1997).
Literacy is universally valued as a means to survive, avoid exploitation, and travel. “I am illiterate, I am like a blind person,” said a poor mother in Pakistan (1994). However, education, even primary education, receives mixed reviews in many countries, including in Eastern Europe. While poor people value education, official and unofficial expenses required even for “free” primary education is considered high and its returns low. People speak of absent teachers, low teacher motivation and skills, contributions required such as chalk and gifts, and costs related to school uniforms and transportation. In addition, many poor parents and children calculate that in a tight economy and corrupt society, education does not lead to jobs. “Getting a job has nothing to do with what you learn in school” (Uganda 1998).
Poor people speak extensively about the important role of assets in reducing their vulnerability. These included physical assets, particularly land and housing; human assets, such as health and entrepreneurial skills; and social assets or social networks. In the absence of personal savings or state-provided assistance, social relations are poor people’s only social insurance. Poor people also highlight their greater vulnerability to both seasonal and catastrophic environmental shocks and to increased social strife.
Physical vulnerability, the fear of physical and sexual assault, is a concern expressed by poor women in many countries.
This combination of limited assets results in poor people feeling powerless to defend themselves and their families. Poor women dependent on collection of non-timber forest products report shrinking resources due to unsustainable clear-cutting of trees and their inability to stop the large-scale felling. “Little by little the environment is dying and people don’t understand that the problem comes from the fact that man is killing the environment,” said a poor mother of seven children in Guatemala (1997b).

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Relations within the Household
He scolded her and physically assaulted her for not preparing his meal.
—Bangladesh 1996
Many poor households are stressed and crumbling, but gender norms and inequity remain intact both within the household and in institutions of society. The household is the fundamental building block of society, and the place where individuals confront basic livelihood concerns, norms, values, power and privilege. Men’s identity and roles are associated with being the “breadwinner” and “rule maker” and women’s identity is equated with “care giving.” Social norms still support men’s authority and indeed men’s
“right” to beat women, and social norms still dictate that women should suffer in silence.
While many households manage to survive intact, many are crumbling under the weight of social, political, and economic dislocations. However, the responses of men and women to these dislocations are dramatically different. Many men are collapsing, falling into in domestic abuse and violence, turning to alcohol and drugs, and/or abandoning their families. Women, on the other hand, seem to swallow their pride and hit the streets to do demeaning jobs to bring food to the family table. “Rather than suffering from poverty, we should better go sweep up the garbage in other people’s houses” (Moldova
1997).
Faced with discrimination in the labor market, including a preference for hiring younger women, and lack of opportunities in the formal sector, women have entered the informal market in large numbers and exposed themselves to additional risk. Women’s increased income, however, is not necessarily empowering them. “Men own everything because when they were born they just found it like that” (Tanzania 1997). Women in many countries are still treated as legal minors regarding ownership of land and property. Yet in times of trouble, “the first thing to be sold is invariably women’s jewelry” (Pakistan
1993). The death of the husband often leaves widows destitute.
Relations with the State
A person remains unprotected; he is oppressed by a feeling of being humiliated, beaten, insulted and robbed —Ukraine 1996
“Nobody wants you to come with empty hands.” Poor people experience the state as ineffective, irrelevant, and corrupt. While they appreciate the importance of governmentprovided services, corruption was experienced by poor people in every sphere of life. In health, education, finance, distribution of water, land, seeds, pensions, unemployment benefits where available, and even relief during emergencies, states are often experienced as corrupt, callous, and uncaring. “The poor are those who suffer. Because in our country there are resources. The authorities don’t seem to see poor people. Everything about the poor is despised, and above all poverty is despised” (Brazil 1995). Lack of information and the need for documents, which state officials make difficult to obtain, limit poor people’s access to state-provided services. Institutional practices reflect gender norms, making it difficult for women and girls to access education, health care, loans, and property. Women’s access is further limited by the fact that many programs target heads of households, invariably presumed to be men. To qualify, women needed
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documents issued only to men. In Ukraine, the unemployed said that the humiliation experienced at the unemployment office was “designed to chase the unemployed away.”
In Kenya, men, women, and youths said that they were “treated worse than dogs” at the health clinic. In many countries of Central Asia and in Eastern Europe, privatization is equated with “theft.” In Thailand, poor people said, “It was the rich who benefited from the boom . . . but we the poor pay the price of the crisis” (Thailand 1998).
Relations with the Elite
The leaders have the power, but they have no interest in the community.
—Venezuela 1998
The local elite and local leaders act as effective gate-keepers to government-provided assistance, either diverting resources to their own use, or further deepening their power over the poor by becoming the resource distributors. Poor people spoke about collusion between local officials and local elite. In Panama, people said, “the community has no voice” (Panama 1998). In Eastern Europe, people report an increase in patronage ties, and said that without “protectors” survival was difficult. In India, the Panchayat Raj, despite problems, is viewed as breaking the hold of local elite in some areas, although caste-based organizations remain strong in other areas, as does bonded labor (India
1998d). Despite obvious wrong-doings and excesses by the elite, without a secure means of livelihood the poor remain silent witnesses.
Cooperation across class and caste occurs primarily if the problem affects the rich just as much as the poor, such as when floods threaten, or when a road must be built to reduce isolation. Relations with NGOs
Even the non-government initiatives have at best provided marginal access to Gandas [tribal people] —India 1997c.
NGOs have limited presence and outreach. Where they are present, NGOs are often praised as the only groups concerned about poor people. In the absence of state services, they have become important providers of basic services and charity to poor people. In many places, NGOs are clearly more trusted than the government. However there are also accounts of NGO ineffectiveness, irrelevance, and favoritism. In Togo, “briefcase”
NGOs affected the credibility of all NGOs. In Bangladesh, the urban poor are upset with
NGOs because in their perception “NGOs promise much and do little” (Bangladesh
1996). Poor people in many countries lack information about NGO activities in their areas. NGOs also suffer from the “tarmac bias,” despite their best intentions.
Some of the problems experienced by NGOs are due to uncertain and short-term funding and limited capacity. Some NGOs involved with delivering services financed by international organizations are criticized for “dispensing financing with little local participation” (Senegal 1995). The potential of NGOs to support poor people’s organizations and keep the state accountable at the local level remains largely unmet.

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Networks and Associations of the Poor
These days nobody gets enough fish, so it’s no use to expect your brother or neighbor to help you out; he doesn’t have enough either. —Benin 1994
Informal networks and associations of poor people are common in rural and urban communities. In the absence of connections to state resources, these informal networks be come critical for survival; they become poor people’s lifelines. “If it hadn’t been for help from the village, the children would have died of hunger” (Armenia 1995). Poor people also recognize the limits of their networks. “If one man is hungry and doesn’t have any food, how can he help another hungry man?” (Pakistan 1993). In times of shared economic stress, the resources of these networks are further depleted. Rich people’s networks are more cohesive, and cut across village boundaries as well as social, economic and political activities. Poor people’s networks in many parts of the world do not transcend community boundaries and rarely enter the political domain. There are important differences between men’s and women’s networks. Men are more embedded in formal patron-client relations, whereas women, lacking access to formal systems, invest heavily in social relations with other women both for social solidarity and for informal sharing of limited resources. Most of these women’s organizations remain disconnected from any external resources. Associations are stronger in rural than in urban areas, where they are more likely to be organized around occupational groups.
Community-based organizations provide basic services in the community and build social cohesion. Women are generally excluded from community level decision making. “Men have a better place in the community.”(El Salvador 1997). Some community based organizations reflect local power relations and often involve fees. A poor woman in Togo said, “If you are as poor as I am and can’t contribute regularly, you can’t participate”
(Togo 1996). Given economic stress, the introduction of fees for services forces poor people to make choices. With limited resources, they very often try to continue their membership in burial societies, to ensure that at least in death they will be taken care of.
Burial societies are found all over Africa and in Central Asia and in Eastern Europe.
“They will not put you free of charge even in a grave,” said a pensioner in Macedonia
(1998).
Organizations of the Poor
There is surprisingly little mention of organizations of poor people that cut across communities or that have succeeded in accessing resources that were meant for the poor.
In Ecuador, over a twenty-year period, federations of indigenous organizations have emerged at regional and national levels that now work with governments on local and national policy issues including land reform. In some places in India, NGOs are involved in organizing work and credit groups of women to help purchase raw materials in bulk and eventually to raise awareness and to mobilize women around their rights and economic activities (India 1997a). In Vietnam, NGOs are involved in helping set up poor people’s production organizations to change poor people’s bargaining power. In Nigeria, a widow’s organization started by a Catholic priest has changed widows’ lives dramatically in a society where widows had been scorned, hated, and vulnerable to

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assault. The reports are silent on collective movements and on poor people’s cooperatives, trade unions, or health associations.
Social Fragmentation
Respect is lost, if someone wants to do something.. always someone steals the money. —Panama 1998
Poor people report living with increased crime, corruption, violence, and insecurity amidst declining social cohesion. Poor people feel helpless against the forces of change.
Many poor people report that they experienced a decline in economic opportunities and that new opportunities are only available to those with “connections.” This perpetuates vicious cycles of exclusion. Even in rural areas, people feel that sharing and reciprocity have declined as people struggle for survival. “What is mine is mine, and what is your is yours, in this community people are very stingy” (Ecuador, 1996a). In Yemen, people feel that businessmen are betraying traditional solidarity (Yemen 1999). In country after country, South Africa, Jamaica, Ethiopia, Kenya, Thailand, poor people draw strong links between crime and unemployment. This is most extreme in the former Soviet Bloc countries. In Ukraine, people reported that seedlings planted in the ground were stolen overnight. In Armenia, people said that violence has become so pervasive that “the streets have invaded the classroom” (Armenia 1996). In Moldova, people reported that brutal attacks on both men and women were common because police protection was no longer available.
Few poor people feel they have access to justice and the police, and officials and criminals are often accused of being in collusion. Instead of being seen as protectors, wherever they are mentioned the police are largely viewed negatively for their indifference, for their role in intimidation, corruption, crime, and for their ability to harass and brutalize. “The police support their families by just showing their shadow”
(Armenia 1995).

Elements of a Change Strategy
People now place their hopes in God, since the government is no longer involved in such matters. —Armenia 1995
From the perspective of poor people, institutions are in crisis. Due to a deterioration of the administrative and public service capabilities of the state, social institutions that shape civic and economic life have broken down, leaving the poor, excluded groups, and even entire states vulnerable to shock and conflict. Despite the efforts of many committed individuals within governments, civil society, and international organizations who work in partnership with poor people, institutional encounters, rather than providing essential services and opportunities, leave poor people disempowered, excluded, and silenced. It is this crisis that has created the opportunity for rethinking development strategies to reach the poor.

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Changing poor people’s lives for the better is inherently complex because poverty is never caused by the lack of one thing. It involves many interrelated elements, and the analysis reveals that without shifts in power relations, poor people cannot access or shape the resources aimed to assist them. A strategy for change must have four critical elements: (1) Start with poor people’s realities, (2) invest in organizational capacity of the poor, (3) change social norms, and (4) support development entrepreneurs.
Start with Poor People’s Realities
When development interventions and government performance are approached from the perspective and experience of poor people, the world of development assistance looks different. Poor people are able partners. The challenge for outsiders is to look at the world through the eyes and spirit of the poor, to start with poor people’s realities and then trace upwards and outwards to make the changes needed to impact poor people’s lives.
Poverty Diagnosis by the Poor
When we view the world from the perspectives of poor people, five findings stand out.
First, poor people’s definitions of poverty include economic well-being, vulnerability, powerlessness, the shame of dependency and social isolation. Degree of dependency or autonomy emerges in many countries as a classification criterion of poverty. Poor people don’t talk much about income but focus on the range of assets they use in coping and in overcoming shocks. What you measure is what you see. While poverty measures that focus primarily on consumption and expenditures, education and health are important, they miss important dimensions of poverty, particularly voice and power. Poor people’s experiences urge an expansion of poverty measures to include gender differentiated asset accumulation, vulnerability, and voice and power.
Poor women and men have detailed knowledge and have context-specific criteria about who is poor and not poor. This knowledge can be used in programs that depend on identifying poor people. The participatory poverty measurement methods can become a powerful complement to household surveys to monitor and evaluate change over time.
To be useful, PPAs need to adopt an institutional approach to understanding poverty from the perspective of poor people. It is also critical to adopt a gendered approach to the
PPAs. This implies better understanding of the embeddedness of men’s and women’s lives in institutions in specific contexts from the household to the national levels and how this affects their freedom to pursue a life with dignity. Sampling frameworks also need to be clearly defined.30
Second, concern about insecure livelihoods is widespread. Most of the poor who are not involved in agriculture find their livelihoods in the informal sector. Yet most government and international attention is focused on formal employment opportunities. Poor people in the lower end of the informal sector lack any protection. Examples of ill health throwing families into destitution emerged from all over the world and cannot be ignored;
30

Much more work needs to be done to understand the attitudes, interests, and values of service providers and the local elite in order to design strategies that are more likely to be supported by them.

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Thus, programs that provide poor people with health coverage and yet do not drain the national treasury are desperately needed31 There are very few trade unions of the poor that focus on the problems of poor workers in the informal sector. Much can be learned from the work of the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in India, which focuses on organizing women in informal employment and is experimenting with schemes to provide health and life insurance to workers in the unregulated economy sector.32 Third, lack of infrastructure, roads, transport, and water emerged as a characteristic that distinguishes the poor from the rich. From poor people’s perspective, the order of improvements in roads needs to be reversed, with much more emphasis on roads connecting villages to each other and the nearest town. In terms of water, much innovative work has been undertaken around the world, and this needs to expand. Privacy for toilet needs, to prevent assault and harassment, emerged as a high priority in
Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Fourth, poor people give high priority to literacy and skills acquisition and the value of education but are interested in “education” only when the immediate survival needs have been met. There are exceptions. For example in Kenya parents often expressed a willingness to sell everything they had to ensure children got through at least primary education. In many countries poor people will invest in education only if the costs are lowered and if the structure and quality are relevant to their lives. The hidden and not so hidden costs of education are too high for many poor parents. Innovations such as scholarship programs for poor girls are radically influencing the decision to send girls to

31

A health insurance scheme started by Grameen Bank is promising. Grameen Kalyan, Grameen Bank’s health care program, acts as both an insurer and health provider. The health centers are attached to the
Grameen Bank center and offer curative outpatient and door-to-door services. A center is started after thorough discussions with members. Premiums are based on a sliding scale. Health centers have recovered approximately 65% of costs, and already 66% of Grameen Bank members participate in the scheme. The annual premium in 1996 was Taka 12 ($2.5) per family for a maximum of eight family members. As village health workers have been added to the centers’ staffs, the pricing structure is currently being refined. Source: Smita Srinivas, publication pending.
32 The Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) is a registered trade union with 250,000 women members who are self-employed hawkers, vendors, home-based workers, and laborers. To protect these workers, SEWA started the Integrated Social Security Program, the largest and most comprehensive contributory social security scheme which presently insures over 32,000 female informal sector workers in
India today. The scheme covers health insurance, life insurance (death and disability) and asset insurance
(loss or damage to house or work equipment). SEWA works with two nationalized companies, the Life
Insurance Corporation of India, and the United India Insurance Company. The scheme works through risk pooling by women who already know and can monitor each other. The scheme is financed by the interest paid on a grant provided by GTZ, one-third through direct contributions by women workers, and one-third through a scheme subsidized by the Government of India through the Life Insurance Corporation. The total health and asset insurance premium is Rupees 60 ($1.50) per year, an additional Rupees provides life insurance as well. The coverage is Rupees 3000 for natural death, Rupees 25,000 for accidental death,
Rupees 2000 for assets, and Rupees 3000 for the house. Currently SEWA is thinking of expanding to pension plans for older workers and increasing coverage and health benefits. For more information see
Srinivas 1999.

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schools in a few countries. New thinking is required to bring basic education within the reach of poor children.33
Fifth, poor people feel powerless to change the behavior and actions of state officials, the police, and the local rich. Corruption and the decline in safety are real and widespread issues for poor people. Since these issues cannot be dealt with in isolation, systemic interventions will be needed to create local government councils that are accountable to poor people and police that protects rather than harms the poor.
Invest in Organizational Capacity of the Poor
Organizational capacity or social capital has rightly been called the asset of the poor. Yet the review shows that this asset is on the decline, eroded by economic pressure, economic and physical dislocation. The review also shows that given the pressures to survive and dependency on the rich with little room to maneuver, the networks of poor people become atomized and serve a survival and social function rather than a transformational or political function.
It is only when poor people can draw upon the strength of their numbers and organize that can they have their voices heard, negotiate with buyers and sellers, and participate effectively in local governance and government programs intended to serve them. Much remains to be done to support organizations of the poor at the local level. Developing organizational capacity of the poor is a long-term process that may take 10 to 20 years. It requires long-term financing, trust, and flexibility. This has to be done with care because it is very easy for impatient outsiders to take over local processes and leadership.
Grassroots coalitions of poor people’s organizations and intermediary organizations are also needed to ensure that poor people’s voices and interests are reflected in decision making beyond the community. Global, regional, and national policy networks of poor people’s organizations are critical to influence decisions being made outside the community but which have important bearing on the lives of poor women and men.
Decentralize and Implement Community-Driven Approaches
Many countries are introducing radical decentralization in attempts to create accountable and responsive governments. Community-driven development is increasingly being adopted by governments and international development agencies. Neither will work effectively unless local social relations are understood and methods are found to co-opt the rich to support the poor—or at least to minimize their negative impact on poor communities. Developing local organizational capacity requires facilitators who work with poor men and women to inform them about programs, rules, and assets. Poor people need to be organized to demand local-level transparency and accountability. This process may also require protection from punitive actions taken by the local elite. So far, governments and most development assistance have focused on the rules, resources, and capacity of the formal systems of governance, and not on mechanisms to build the
33

The Indian State of Madhya Pradesh has received an amazing response from the government offer of “a teacher and books” if the village applies for a school in 90 days. The teachers are from the village and the school maybe under a tree.

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capacity of poor women and men to participate in local governance and to demand local level transparency and accountability. There are promising examples of projects that invest in local organizers and organizations chosen by the poor, unlock information about budgets and wages and put them in the public domain, and develop government procedures that deliver timely assistance without distorting local priorities. 34
Partnership with Civil Society
NGOs and civil society can play key roles in building up organizations of poor people and in serving a “watchdog” function. To be effective, NGOs accountable to poor people need long-term funding, media support, and space to develop. This must be supported by local and national laws and finances. In any environment, it is easy for well-intentioned, more powerful and articulate outsiders to take over local processes, and thereby diminish the very local level processes they want to support. Organizing among the poor, letting leadership among the poor emerge, and acting on local-level priorities are all processes that have their own rhythm. They require patience, listening, and strong norms of service and humility. All are difficult for highly educated outsiders to practice.
Change Social Norms
A norm is a shared expectation of behavior that connotes what is considered desirable and appropriate (Marshall 1994). Poor people’s interactions with landlords, traders, moneylenders, state officials, local council members, local elite, politicians — and women’s encounters within the household with husbands, mother-in-laws, relatives, other women, traders, financiers, police, educators, and employers — are not governed primarily by the laws of the land, but by the social norms that dictate who has what value in each interaction. These pervasive and interconnected norms hold the entire edifice of society and governance in place. Changed social norms can lead to sustained change, which is then reinforced by formal rules and laws. Changes in social norms about cigarette smoking in the United States in the last few years are a case in point; in contrast, dowry, domestic abuse, and bonded labor persist in India despite changes in laws because social norms support these practices. Laws create the space for change, but without supportive change in social norms, social practice does not change.
Changes in social norms mean changing mindsets, combining the power of the individual and the power of the institution, and facing up to pervasive gender inequalities.
Changing the Mindset
After fifty years of development assistance, it is clear that policies and projects are not implemented in a vacuum. They are formulated by bureaucrats and planners and implemented by people with a particular mindset in a particular culture and with particular social norms, reinforced by metaphors, stories, proverbs, and films. The power of social norms has been overlooked. The persistence of untouchability in India, female genital mutilation in Africa, and theft of state resources with impunity, suggests that
34

Recent analysis of success stories all point to long term investment, evolving, adapting and learning by doing. See Reasons for Hope: Instructive Experiences in Rural Development Eds. A. Krishna, N. Uphoff and M. Esman, 1997. See also D. Narayan and K. Ebbe. 1997. Design of Social Funds. World Bank
Discussion Paper, no. 375, World Bank: Washington, D.C.

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technocratic fixes will continue to be defeated by social norms. Similarly, if officials and the political elite believe that poor people are lazy, stupid, undeserving, and pampered, then poverty policies are unlikely to be formulated or implemented in ways that serve poor people. If it is assumed that poor people lack agency and cannot make wise spending decisions, policymakers are unlikely to seek the poor as partners in their own development. Changing the mindset of service-providers, the elite, and the press is not simple, but it can be done. Much can be learned from the market penetration strategies of the private sector. Development communication still remains a step-child in poverty reduction strategies, in terms of both the resources invested and the technical expertise brought to bear. Power of the Personal
Communism was a societal experiment to create a more equitable world. It failed because human nature eventually subverted even the power of a coercive state.
Development assistance, with its focus on the enormity of the problem, has lost sight of the power of the individual. Change is brought about by individuals in interaction with other individuals, one step at a time. Hence individual commitment, values, and behavior matter and can be the most potent sources of change as committed individuals interconnect. Without tapping into the power of the personal, the best-intended plans go astray. With change in personal commitment, small miracles happen as people start to use their skills, positions, and power for the collective good.35
Power of the Personal Combined with the Institutional
To bring about large-scale change will require the power of both individual action and institutional action, but attention has first to be given to the personal over the institutional. The evidence shows clearly that “rules in use” about bribery and behavior subvert formal rules that promote accountability and public commitment. India, for example, has progressive laws, but protection under these laws is nearly impossible not only for the poor, but even for the well-to-do. But this flexibility can be used to advantage. If personal norms change in favor of the poor and their rights, clever minds will just as creatively subvert outdated rules and laws to support resource allocation decisions that serve the poor.
The best strategy is to combine the power of the personal with the power of the right institutional incentives in a reformed state. Much has already been written about reform of the state.36 Examples abound, in design of irrigation departments, in water resource management, rural roads and markets, community-based education and health clinics, social investment and community-driven projects. Everywhere, while case studies highlight the institutional, there are always individuals who set personal examples and

35

Robert Chambers has written extensively about the importance of personal change. See Whose Reality
Counts?: Putting the First Last. 1997.
36
The World Development Report in 1997 focused on the role of the state and reviewed extensive literature and experiences from around the world.

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lead the way to reform. Such champions cannot be created or programmed by development assistance, and their critical role remains unsung.
Facing Gender Inequities
Gender inequality is learned in every household around the world.37 Expectations about gender inequality are internalized by both men and women from early childhood, and become such a deep part of the psyche that they are resistant to change and hard to overcome. The very way in which the PPA studies were conducted reflects the fact that development still follows a “women-in-development” approach rather than a “gender” approach. The studies reflect remarkably little knowledge about men’s lives and quite extensive information about women’s lives.38 Since men and women’s lives are intertwined, changing women’s lives means changing men’s internalized norms about women and their behavior towards women. Only then will equitable laws be put into practice. To enable both men and women to make the necessary transitions with fewer traumas, innovative approaches are needed to assist men with their fears of “emasculation and social impotence” when women step outside the house.
All poverty reduction programs impact power relations within the household, and should include awareness raising and psychological support to both men and women, together and separately, to navigate the difficult path of changing power relations. A poor woman in Uganda suggested one possibility: “Women and men should sit at a round table to discuss their rights. Unless men are included, these things will not be understood. It will be like bathing in mud again” (Uganda 1996).
Support Development Entrepreneurs
New alliances must be formed between the state and the poor, civil society, and international development agencies. The lessons from the literature on social movements including such concepts as new political opportunity structure and political allies need to be applied to transforming defunct bureaucracies.39 Raka Ray has recently added the concept of political fields, “the socially constructed environment within which organizations are embedded to which organizations constantly respond” (Ray 1999: 2136). This environment includes all parties, the media, religious organizations, pressure groups. Social movements bring about realignment of power, change social norms, and create new opportunity structures. Out of this will emerge a mindset that applies
“liberalization not only for the rich but also the poor” (Ela Bhat 1998).40 In Ethiopia, for example, which has adopted free market policies, poor people in some rural areas noted that regulations of certain types of trade had made the search for a livelihood more
37

On the day this chapter was being revised, newspapers reported that under new laws passed by parliament in Germany, wives were finally legally entitled to monthly pocket money.
38
A computerized search for men’s networks or groups yielded almost nothing, whereas a mound of paper resulted from a search for women’s networks.
39
For an excellent history and review of social movements see Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social
Movements, Collective Action and Politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994, 1999.
40
Speech by Ela Bhatt at the World Bank, January 1998. Ela Bhatt is the founder of SEWA, a trade union in India that serves women working in the informal sector. Her work has also led to the creation of
WIEGO, a global network for “women in informal employment, globalizing and organizing.”

228

difficult. This related to ban on firewood cutting, ban on street trading, or trading in the traditional market (Ethiopia 1998).
Development leaders or entrepreneurs are found at all levels in society, from the woman in a village who takes a stand against her neighbor being beaten up by her husband to technical innovators in electrical companies. Their social energy when supported sensitively creates momentum for improved quality of lives for poor people.41
Find Allies Within and Outside the System
Allies are needed to initiate change in social norms, from both within the system and outside it. Within the system, development entrepreneurs are needed to initiate change in behavior and actions. The power of the media, of news stories, advertisements, music, and theatre are needed to start a new conversation about a just and equitable society for all, and to change specific social norms about the poor, gender, and corruption. For example, to fight corruption it is critical to reestablish honesty — not corruption — as the norm. The Corrupt and the Committed Co-exist
The paradox of large organizations is that the corrupt and the committed live side by side.42 The PPA studies also mention cases of honest officials or caring local leaders and elite surrounded by a mire of corruption. The challenge is to recognize, support, and empower these individuals so that their social energy is more effectively harnessed for the collective good. At the same time, we need to broaden and deepen our understanding of the institutional environments that create and reproduce both corruption and commitment so that committed individuals can be supported at the same time that institutional environments are redesigned. Only then will it be possible to turn institutional cycles from vicious to virtuous.
Support the Committed
Development assistance is geared to move large amounts of money through inefficient and frequently corrupt bureaucratic systems with little flexibility. Rules and audits are meant to keep systems accountable. Transforming a government department or ministry through social movement, on the other hand, requires empowering development entrepreneurs with authority, finances, and supportive resources to implement programs and to deliver results both in changed social norms and in services. It is equally important that these “heroes” are celebrated through the media, become household names and become new role models. A minimum system of checks and balances will of course still be needed with results from monitoring studies of client satisfaction made widely available. 41

The Ashoka Foundation for example identifies and supports individuals, leaders, practical visionaries who have the entrepreneurial drive and creativity to transform systems to bring about large scale change.
Over 1,000 fellows have been financed in 34 countries since 1981.
42
Although not a new observation, this paradox was sharpened by a conversation with Norman Uphoff in
June 1999.

229

❖✝❖✝❖✝❖✝❖
Poor people’s lives will improve by building on their priorities, realities, and networks.
This will involve long-term support to civil society to facilitate the emergence of people’s organizations that enhance the ability of poor men and women to share in economic growth, participate in democratic governance, ensure fair distribution of government resources, and protect themselves from exploitation. Governments have important roles to play by adopting economic and social policies that open economic opportunities for the poor, provide basic infrastructure, and protect citizenship rights. International agencies have important roles in supporting intermediaries who work directly with poor people. For poor people, empowerment, security, and opportunity must all be experienced at the local level. Without physical, psychological, and economic security, participation and empowerment remain meaningless slogans on paper. Poverty is experienced at the local level, in a specific context, in a specific place, in a specific interaction. Those who plan for poverty reduction are far away. While participatory poverty assessments such as those reviewed here give us some idea about poor people’s realities, the danger is that development agencies will simply continue “business as usual.” When we go into poor people’s homes as outsiders, poor people open their lives, their joys, and their suffering to us, and we experience their dignity, their wisdom, and their warm hospitality. It is difficult for us to practice direct reciprocity, but we can communicate their voices.
Researchers in the South African PPA write:
After we had lunch with them, they sang for us. It is really amazing how they used songs to express themselves and their thoughts, expectations, fears, and anxieties. The words of the final song were: “Here they are, yes we agree, here they are, our visitors who were sent by the World Bank, yes, here they are, they are here to help us . . . and we hope they won’t forget us.” (South Africa 1998)
Will we remember?

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APPENDICES
Appendix 1: Regions and Countries of Analyzed Reports
REGION
AFRICA and MIDDLE EAST
(subtotal = 30)

EASTERN EUROPE/ FRMR USSR
(subtotal = 10)

EAST ASIA
(subtotal = (10)

LATIN AMERICA/CARIBBEAN
(subtotal = 16)

SOUTH ASIA
(subtotal = 12)

COUNTRY
Benin
Burkina Faso
Cameroon
Ethiopia
Gabon
Ghana
Guinea-Bissau
Kenya
Madagascar
Mali
Niger
Nigeria
Rwanda
Senegal
South Africa
Swaziland
Tanzania
Togo
Uganda
Yemen
Zambia
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Georgia
Latvia
Macedonia
Moldova
Ukraine
Cambodia
China
Indonesia
Philippines
Thailand
Vietnam
Brazil
Costa Rica
Ecuador
El Salvador
Guatemala
Jamaica
Mexico
Nicaragua
Panama
Venezuela
Bangladesh
India
Pakistan

Project Totals:

231

NUMBER OF REPORTS
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
2
2
2
1
3
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
3
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
3
1
1
3
1
1
2
2
5
1
1
1
1
1
1
9
2
78

Appendix 2: List of PPA Authors
Armenia 1999

Armenia 1996

Armenia 1995

Azerbaijan 1997
Bangladesh 1996

Benin 1994
Brazil 1995
Burkina Faso 1994
Cambodia 1998

Cameroon 1995
China 1997

Costa Rica 1997
Ecuador 1996a

Ecuador 1996b

El Salvador 1997

El Salvador 1995

Bertmar, Anna. “Armenia Children’s De-Institutionalization
Initiative: Beneficiary Assessment of Children in Institutions.”
World Bank, Washington, D.C.
Gomart, Elizabeth. “Social Assessment Report on the
Education and Health Sectors in Armenia.” World Bank,
Washington, D.C.
Dudwick, Nora. “A Qualitative Assessment of the Living
Standards of the Armenian Population, October 1994 – March
1995.” World Bank, Washington, D.C.
World Bank. “Poverty Assessment,” The World Bank,
Washington D.C.
UNDP. “UNDP’s 1996 Report on Human Development in
Bangladesh. A Pro-Poor Agenda – Poor People’s
Perspectives.” UNDP, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
World Bank. “Benin: Towards a Poverty Alleviation Strategy,”
World Bank, Washington D.C.
World Bank. Poverty Assessment. World Bank, Washington,
D.C.
World Bank. “Visual Participatory Poverty Assessment.”
World Bank, Washington, D.C.
Caroline M. Robb, M. Shivakuma and Nil Vanna. “The Social
Impacts of the Creeping Crisis in Cambodia: Perceptions of
Poor Communities.” World Bank, Washington D.C.
World Bank. “Diversity, Growth, and Poverty Reduction.”
World Bank, Washington, D.C.
World Bank. “Anning Valley Agricultural Development
Project: Summary of a Social Assessment (Annex 10).” World
Bank, Washington, D.C.
World Bank. “Costa Rica: Identifying the Social Needs of the
Poor: An Update.” World Bank, Washington, D.C.
Hentschel, Jesko with William Waters and Anna Kathryn
Vandever Webb. “Rural Poverty in Ecuador: A Qualitative
Assessment, Internal World Bank Document.” Washington,
D.C.
Hentschel, Jesko with William Waters and Anna Kathryn
Vandever Webb. “Ecuador Poverty Report” World Bank,
Washington, D.C.
Peña, Maria-Valeria Junho and Kathryn Johns Swartz, et al.
“Stakeholder Consultation and Analysis: Second Phase of the
Social Assessment for the El Salvador EDUCO Program and the Basic Education Modernization Project. World Bank,
Washington, D.C.
Peña, Maria-Valeria Junho. 1995. “Social Assessment: El
Salvador Basic Education Modernization Project.” World
Bank, Washington, D.C.

232

Ethiopia 1998
Gabon 1997
Georgia 1997
Ghana 1995a

Ghana 1995b
Guatemala 1997a

Guatemala 1997b

Guatemala 1994a

Guatemala 1994b

Guatemala 1993

Guinea-Bissau
1994
India 1998a

India 1998b
India 1998c
India 1998d
India 1997a

India 1997b

World Bank. “Participatory Poverty Assessment for Ethiopia.”
World Bank, Washington, D.C.
World Bank. “Republic of Gabon: Poverty in a Rent-Based
Economy.” World Bank, Washington, D.C.
Dudwick, Nora. “Poverty in Georgia: The Social Dimensions of Transition.” World Bank, Washington, D.C
Norton, Andy, Ellen Bortei-Doku Aryeetey, David Korboe, and D.K. Tony Dogbe. “Poverty Assessment in Ghana Using
Qualitative and Participatory Research Methods.” World Bank,
Washington, D.C.
World Bank. “Ghana: Poverty Past, Present and Future.”
World Bank, Washington, D.C.
Traa-Valarezo, Ximena. 1997. “Social Assessment for the
Guatemala Reconstruction and Local Development Project.”
World Bank, Washington, D.C.
Gomez, Marcela Tovar. “Perfil de los Pueblos Indigenos de
Guatemala.” Internal World Bank Document. Washington,
D.C.
Vandever Webb, Anna Kathryn. 1994. “Interim Evaluation
Report: Guatemala Qualitative and Participatory Poverty
Study, Phase II.” Social and Economic Research Institute
Human Resources Operations Division, Guatemala City,
Guatemala/Washington, D.C.
Instituto de Investigaciones. “La Pobreza: Un Enfoque
Participativo: El Cazo de Guatemala.” Internal World Bank
Document. Washington, D.C.
Internal World Bank Situation Report. “Report on the
Guatemala Qualitative and Participatory Poverty Study: Phases
I and II.” World Bank, Washington, D.C.
World Bank 1994, Republic of Guinea-Bissau. “Poverty
Assessment and Social Sectors Strategy Review.” World Bank,
Washington, D.C.
PRAXIS. “Participatory Poverty Profile Study Bolangir
District, Orissa.” UK Department for International
Development, India, New Delhi.
District Poverty Initiatives Project “Social Assessment Field
Report: Guna District Main Report (Madhya Pradesh).”
District Poverty Initiatives Project “Social Assessment Field
Report: Rajgarh District Main Report (Madhya Pradesh).”
District Poverty Initiatives Project “Social Assessment Field
Report: Shivpuri District Main Report (Madhya Pradesh).”
District Poverty Initiatives Project “Report on Social
Assessment for the District Initiatives Project: Baran District
(Rajasthan)”
Indian Institute of Rural Management. “Social Assessment for the preparation of a District Poverty Initiative Project in Tonk

233

India 1997c

India 1997d
India 1997e
Indonesia 1999

Indonesia 1998
Indonesia 1997

Jamaica 1997
Kenya 1997

Kenya 1996

Latvia 1998
Latvia 1997
Macedonia 1998

Madagascar 1996
Madagascar 1994
Mali 1993
Mali 1992
Mexico 1995

District: Findings of Fieldwork (Rajasthan)”
Reddy, S. Sudhakar, K. S. Reddy, P. Padmanabha Rao, and G.
Santhana Babu. “District Poverty Initiatives Project: Strategy and Investment Plan for Poverty Alleviation in Adilabad
(Andhra Pradesh)” Centre for Economic and Social Studies.
Andhra Pradesh, India.
Operations Research Group. “Draft Fieldwork Report, Raisen
District (Madhya Pradesh).”
Operations Research Group. “Draft Fieldwork Report, Sagar
District (Madhya Pradesh).”
World Bank. “Local Capacity and its Implications for
Development: The Case of Indonesia. A Preliminary Report:
Local Level Institutions Study.” Washington, D.C.: World
Bank.
World Bank. “Village Governments and their Communities:
Allies of Adversaries.” Washington, D.C.: World Bank.
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN and the
World Bank. “South Kalimantan Agriculture Area
Development Project: Social Assessment Report.”
Caroline Moser and Jeremy Holland. “Urban Poverty and
Violence in Jamaica.” Washington, D.C. : World Bank.
AMREF. “Coping Without Coping: What Poor People Say
About Poverty in Kenya.” Washington D.C.: Unpublished
World Bank Internal Document.
Deepa Narayan and David Nyamwaya. “Learning from the
Poor: A Participatory Poverty Assessment in Kenya.” World
Bank, Washington, D.C.
Institute of Philosophy and Sociology. 1998. “Listening to the
Poor: A Social Assessment of Poverty in Latvia.” Riga, Latvia.
Hofmane, L. “Report on the Qualitative Analysis Research into the Living Standards of Inhabitants in Aluksne District.”
Institute for Sociological and Political-Legal Research. 1998.
“Qualitative Analysis of the Living Standard of the Population of the Republic of Macedonia.” Institute for Sociological and
Political-Legal Research, Skopje.
World Bank. “Madagascar Poverty Assessment.” World Bank,
Washington, D.C.
Azadeh Moini-Araghi. “Participatory Poverty Assessment:
Synthesis Report.” World Bank, Washington, D.C.
World Bank. “Assessment of Living Conditions.” World Bank,
Washington, D.C.
“Qualitative Study on the Demand for Education” World Bank,
Washington, D.C.
Salmen, Lawrence. “The People’s Voice: Mexico -Participatory Poverty Assessment.” World Bank, Washington,
D.C.

234

Moldova 1997

Nicaragua 1998

Niger 1996
Nigeria 1997

Nigeria 1996
Nigeria 1995
Pakistan 1993

Pakistan 1996

Panama 1998

Philippines 1999

Rwanda 1998
Senegal 1995
South Africa 1998
Swaziland 1997

Tanzania 1999

Thailand 1998

Togo 1996

De Soto, Hermine G., and Nora Dudwick. “Poverty in
Moldova: The Social Dimensions of Transition, June 1996May 1997.” World Bank, Washington, D.C.
Fuller, Bruce and Magdalena Rivarola. 1998. “Nicaragua’s
Experiment to Decentralize Schools: Views of Parents,
Teachers, and Directors.” World Bank, Washington, D.C.
World Bank. “Niger Poverty Assessment: A Resilient People in a Harsh Environment.” World Bank, Washington, D.C.
Francis, Paul A., S. P. I. Agi, S. Ogoh Alubo, Hawa A. Bin, A.
G. Daramola, Uchenna M. Nzewi, and D. J. Shelu. 1997.
“Hard Lessons: Primary Schools, Community, and Social
Capital in Nigeria.” World Bank, Washington, D.C.
World Bank. “Poverty in the Midst of Plenty: The Challenge of Growth with Inclusion.” World Bank, Washington, D.C.
Todd, Dave. “Nigeria Participatory Poverty Assessment.”
Leusden.
Beall, Jo, Nazneen Kanji, Farhana Faruqi, Choudry
Mohammed Hussain, and Mushtaq Mirani. “Social Safety Nets and Social Networks: Their Role in Poverty Alleviation in
Pakistan.” Unpublished report for ODA (UK).
Parker, Barbara. “Pakistan Poverty Assessment: Human
Resources Development: A Social Analysis of Constraints.”
World Bank, Washington, D.C.
Peña, Maria Valéria Junho and Hector Lindo-Fuentes. “Latin
America and the Caribbean: Community Organization, Values and Social Capital in Panama.” World Bank, Washington, D.C.
World Bank. “Mindanao Rural Development Project Social
Assessment: Key Findings for Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat.”
Washington, D.C.: World Bank.
“Etude Participative Sur L’Evolution de la Pauvrété au
Rwanda.” World Bank, Washington, D.C.
“An Assessment of Living Conditions,” World Bank,
Washington, D.C.
“Experience and Perceptions of Poverty in South Africa,”
World Bank, Washington, D.C.
Ministry of Economic Planning and Development and The
Kingdom of Swaziland. “Swaziland: Poverty Assessment by the Poor.”
Narayan, Deepa. 1997. “Voices of the Poor: Poverty and
Social Capital in Tanzania.” Environmentally and socially sustainable development network. World Bank, Washington,
D.C.
Robb, Caroline and Chaohua Zhang. 1998. “Social Aspects of the Crisis: Perceptions of Poor Communities in Thailand.”
World Bank, Washington, D.C.
World Bank. “Overcoming the Crisis, Overcoming Poverty.”

235

Uganda 1999

Uganda 1998

Ukraine 1996

Venezuela 1998

Vietnam 1999a

Vietnam 1999b

Vietnam 1996
Yemen 1999
Yemen 1998

Zambia 1997

Zambia 1994

World Bank, Washington, D.C.
Ministry of Finance Planning and Economic Development.
“Participatory Poverty Assessment – Poor People’s
Perspectives.” (draft) Kampala, Uganda.
McClean, Kimberley and Charles Lwanga Ntale. “Desk
Review of Participatory Approaches to Assess Poverty in
Uganda.” The Ministry of Planning and Economic
Development.
Wanner, Catherine and Nora Dudwick. “Ethnographic Study of
Poverty in Ukraine, October 1995-March 1996.” World Bank,
Washington, D.C.
Walker, Ian with Rafael Del Cid, Fidel Ordonez and Felix
Seijas. “Evaluacion Social del Proyecto Promueba Caracas,
Venezuela.” World Bank, Washington, D.C.
“A Synthesis of Participatory Poverty Assessment from four sites in Vietnam: Lao Cai, Ha Tinh, Tra Vinh and Ho Chi
Minh City.” Prepared by Vietnam-Sweden Mountain Rural
Development Programme, Action Aid, Save the Children Fund
(UK) and Oxfam (GB).
Save the Children/UK. 1999. “Pilot Participatory Poverty
Assessment: Ho Chi Minh City District 11 Wards 5 and 7.”
Save the Children/UK, Hanoi, Vietnam.
Hanoi Research and Training Centre for Community
Development, Vietnam. “Social Issues.”
Volpi, Elena. “The World Bank Yemen Child Development
Project: Social Assessment.” World Bank, Washington, D.C.
La Cava, Gloria, Sharon Beatty, Renaud Detalle, Thaira
Shalan, Nagib Zumair, and Angelica Arbulu. “Yemen Civil
Service Modernization Program: Social and Institutional
Assessment.” World Bank, Washington, DC.
“Listening to Farmers: Participatory Assessment of Policy
Reform in Zambia’s Agricultural Sector” World Bank,
Washington, D.C.
World Bank. “Zambia Poverty Assessment.” World Bank,
Washington, D.C.

236

Appendix 3: “Consultations with the Poor” Index Tree
(F) Free Nodes
(F 1) Space and Population: Used to code mentions of crowding and overpopulation at either the household or community level.
(F 2) Sanitation: Used to code mentions of lack of access to clean water and sanitation facilities. (F 3) Traditional Health Care: Code for mentions of health care sought through modes other than health care professionals or through clinics. Includes home remedies and use of traditional healers.
(F 4) Quality: A general coding category used in conjunction with specific mention of quality (positive or negative).
(F 5) Seasonality & Climate: Used to code mention of seasonality and/or climate directly impacting the lives and livelihoods of the report subjects.
(F 6) Infrastructure: Used to code mentions of various types of physical infrastructure.
(F 7) Communication: Used to code mentions and discussions of communications infrastructure, including media.
(F 8) Tradition: Codes mentions of cultural traditions structuring the experience of poverty (e.g. exclusion of women from paid labor force).
(F 9) Rights: Used to code mentions of rights and rights violations.
(F 10) Geography: Codes mentions of geographical features that affect the experience of poverty (e.g. poor infrastructure in mountainous areas, etc.).
(F 11) Corruption: Codes mentions of corruption in business and/or government.
(F 12) Social Capital: Used to mark points in the text at which the researcher made reference to the concept of social capital in relation to the research setting.
(F 13) Alcohol, Drugs, Gambling: Used to code mentions of these three items.
(F 14) Prostitution, Sex Work: Used to code mentions of these two items.
(F 15) Counterintuitive: A subjective coding used to reference text which appeared unusual, counterintuitive, or otherwise worthy of a special mention.
(F 16) Agricultural Productivity: Codes mentions of agricultural productivity levels.
(F 17) Forest Resources: Codes mentions of forest resource use.
(F 18) Definitions of Poverty: Used to code information about how the poor define, understand and interpret poverty, its causes, and its effects.
(F 19) Informal Economy: Codes mentions of participation in or presence of informal economy. (F 20) Social Assistance, Aid: Used to code mentions of the presence and/or effect of social assistance and aid programs or benefits.
(F 21) Change: Used to code mentions of social, cultural and/or institutional change over time.
(F 22) Belief Systems: Codes mentions of socio-cultural belief systems influencing actions. (F 23) Shocks: Used to code mentions of events and occurrences that posed severe physical and/or psychological shocks to the subjects within the report.
(F 24) Reproduction, Women’s Health: Used to code specific mentions of women’s health and reproductive health issues
(F 25) Psychological Health: Used to code mentions of psychological health.
(F 26) Love: Used to code mentions of love.

237

(F 27) Status: Used to code mentions of status and status differentials.
(F 28) Time Allocation: Used to code mentions of time allocation of respondents.
(F 29) Cash: Used to code mentions of participation in monetized economy.
(F 30) Social Mobility: Used to code mentions of the possible amount of social mobility.
(F 31) Safety: Used to code mentions of the physical safety of a given living environment. (1) Cases: The header for case information nodes; contains no data.
(1 1) Report Rating: After reading and coding a document in QSR NUD*IST, coders assigned a subjective rating to the report using a scale of 1-5, 1 indicating poor and 5 excellent. The rating is based on the utility of the report for the purposes of this study; a report rich with information on the experience of poverty as expressed by poor people received a high rating while one focused principally on aggregate economic indicators or macro-level poverty analysis received a lower rating.
(1 2) Gender Rating: As with the Report Rating, coders assigned a rating of the report for its coverage of gender. A report that was heavily disaggregated by gender or explicitly explored the differential experiences of poverty across gender were rated higher than those which failed to explore the ways in which experiences of poverty are gendered.
(1 3) Methods: Cites references to methodology used to gather data presented in the document. (1 3 1) Number of Communities in Sample: References to the number of communities included in the sampling frame for the document.
(1 3 2) Number of Regions: References to the number of regions in a particular country covered in the document.
(1 3 3) Number of Groups: References to the number of groups from a particular community included in data collection. For example, researchers may conduct focus groups with several separate informant groups in a single community, including women’s groups, men’s groups, community leaders, and so on.
(1 3 4) Selection Methods: References to the methods employed for selecting the regions, communities, or groups included in data collection. (2) Institutions: The header for the group of nodes referencing institutional structures identified and discussed in the documents.
(2 1) Formal/Governments: All references to any formal institution was assigned this code. If the institution was identified more specifically, a second institution code was assigned to identify the specific type of formal/governmental institution being discussed. This node assumes that most state institutions discussed in the documents are also associated with a governmental structure, which differentiates them from

238

civil society institutions below. Non-governmental organizations are considered formal institutions for the purposes of this study.
(2 2) Informal: This code was assigned to institutions not associated with formal governing structures or organizational management, such as community-based revolving credit associations.
(2 3) Village: Institutions identified as functioning primarily at the village or community level were assigned this code in combination with either (2 1) or (2 2).
(2 4) Ward/ District: Institutions identified as functioning primarily at the ward or district level were assigned this code in combination with either (2 1) or (2 2).
(2 5) Regional: Institutions identified as functioning primarily at the regional level were assigned this code in combination with either (2 1) or (2 2).
(2 6) National: Institutions identified as functioning primarily at the national level were assigned this code.
(2 7) International: Institutions identified as functioning primarily at the international level were assigned this code. International development organizations or funding institutions are included in this node.
(2 8) NGOs: Institutions identified as non-governmental organizations were assigned this code. These are almost exclusively considered formal institutions.
(2 9) Political Parties: Institutions identified as functioning primarily as political organizations or parties were assigned this code.
(2 10) Law: Institutions identified as functioning primarily in law enforcement or administration were assigned this code. These include police, civic order, and judicial institutions. (2 11) Economic (such as SAPs): Institutions identified as functioning primarily as financial institutions, such as banks, were assigned this code. Formal financial policies, such as Structural Adjustment Programs, were also assigned this code.
(2 11 1) Credit Groups: Formal or informal patterns of borrowing and lending were assigned this code.
(2 11 2) Other Economic Associations: Formal or informal associations focused on economic association but not specifically for providing credit, were assigned this code.
(2 12) Social Groups /Associations: Groups such as clubs, cooperatives, and other informal associations were assigned this code.
The subnodes for this code allow the researcher to distinguish between these groups as they serve women, men, the elderly, or religious groups.
(2 12 1) Women’s
(2 12 2) Men’s
(2 12 3) Elderly
(2 12 4) Religious

239

(2 13) Family/ Household: References to household social processes were assigned this code.
(2 13 1) Marriage: References to marriage and social institutions related to marriage were assigned this code. These include references to issues like dowry, brideprice, and other marriage-related social norms and institutions.
(2 14) CBOs: References to community-based organizations were assigned this code. These are distinguished from NGOs by their scale:
NGOs are assumed to have scope and coverage beyond a single locality whereas CBOs are assumed to be community-based.
(3) Voices: The header for this group of nodes is used to identify voice in the documents.
Each represents a direct quotation from a subject as coded below. Reported speech coded both the voice of the researcher (2 23) and the voice of the identified speaker.
For example, (2 23), (3 5), and (3 1) would be used to code the reported speech of a poor woman. A code was only assigned if a speaker was explicitly identified by that category in the text. No inferences as to whether a speaker was rich or poor, minority or majority, and so on were made.
(3 1) Female: Used to code reported speech of women.
(3 2) Male: Used to code the reported speech of men.
(3 3) Unspecified Gender: If a direct quote is provided but the gender of the speaker is unspecified, this code was assigned.
(3 4) Children: Used to code the reported speech of children (with a gender coding as appropriate).
(3 5) Poor: Used to mark text units in which the speaker is identified as poor.
(3 6) Rich: Used to mark text units in which the speaker is identified as rich.
(3 7) Minority: Used to mark text units in which the speaker is identified as a member of a minority social group.
(3 8) Majority: Used to mark text units in which the speaker is identified as a member of a majority social group.
(3 9) Rural: Marks text in which the speaker is identified as resident of a rural area.
(3 10) Urban: Marks text in which the speaker is identified as a resident of an urban area. (3 11) Proverbs: Proverbs and sayings reported in the text were assigned this code.
(3 12) Researcher: This node was used to identify speech reported by the researcher or assertions made by the researcher that may not otherwise be clearly understood as the reader’s voice.
(3 13) Other: This code was utilized to mark the direct speech of a person not fully described using the above voice codes.
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(4) Subjects: The header for the group of nodes identifying topics addressed in a given text unit.
(4 1) Female: Used to code discussions pertaining to women.
(4 2) Male: Used to code discussions pertaining to men.
(4 3) Unspecified Gender: Used to code discussions pertaining to people whose gender is unspecified.
(4 4) Children: Used to code discussions pertaining to children.
(4 5) Poor: Used to code discussions pertaining to people identified as poor.
(4 6) Rich: Used to code discussions pertaining to people identified as rich.
(4 7) Minority: Used to code discussions pertaining to people identified as belonging to a minority group.
(4 8) Majority: Used to code discussions pertaining to people identified as belonging to a majority group.
(4 9) Rural: Used to code discussions pertaining to rural areas.
(4 10) Urban: Used to code discussions pertaining to urban areas.
(4 11) Religious Group: Used to code discussions pertaining to religious groups.
(4 12) Caste, Tribe, Indigenous Group: Used to code discussions pertaining to people identified by their caste, tribe, or indigenous identity.
(4 13) Race, Ethnicity: Used to code discussions pertaining to people identified by their race or ethnicity.
(4 14) Age Group (specific; not children or elderly): Used to code discussions pertaining to people identified as belonging to a specific age group that is neither children nor elderly.
(4 15) Occupational Group: Used to code discussions pertaining to people identified as belonging to a specific occupational group.
(4 16) Disability: Used to code discussions pertaining to people identified as disabled. (4 17) Sexual Orientation, Practice: Used to code discussions pertaining to people identified by their sexual orientation.
(4 18) Migrant: Used to code discussions pertaining to people identified as migrants.
(4 19) Community: Used to code discussions pertaining to a community as a social group. (4 20) Unemployed: Used to code discussions pertaining to people identified as unemployed. (4 21) Elderly, Pensioner: Used to code discussions pertaining to people identified as elderly or pensioners.

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(4 22) Refugee: Used to code discussions pertaining to people identified as refugees.
(4 23) Other: Used to code discussions pertaining to people whose identification is not captured by the above nodes.
(5) Themes: The header for the group of nodes identifying themes addressed in a given text unit.
(5 1) Basic Needs: Used when general references to basic needs were made. In most cases, a more specific need was identified; in these cases, the nodes below were used:
(5 1 1) Food
(5 1 2) Shelter
(5 1 3) Clothing
(5 1 4) Water
(5 2) Health Care: References to health and health care were assigned this code.
(5 2 1) Reproductive Health: References to contraception, maternity, and women’s reproductive health were assigned this code.
(5 2 2) Mortality: Used to mark references to mortality.
(5 3) Education: This code marks any references to education. In combination with a code from group 2 Institutions, the node can represent a formal educational system. It was also used to mark discussions of training and other types of information dissemination discussed in the documents.
(5 4) Economic Livelihood: This code was used broadly to mark references to economic security and well-being. References to employment, income generation, and general participation in the formal cash economy were assigned this code.
(5 5) Culture, Identity, Dignity, Self-Respect: References to community-specific norms, values, and self-identification were assigned this code. Discussions of individual dignity were also assigned this code.
(5 6) Livable Environment: References to environmental quality and access to natural resources were assigned this code.
(5 7) Choices and Options: references to the degree of control people describe over the social processes in which they are involved. For example, choices regarding children, marriage, political participation, expression, association, mobility, speech, thought and others were assigned this code.
(5 8) Conflict and Crime: References to war, violence, and crime were assigned this code. This category includes domestic violence and organized criminal activity.
(5 9) Property and Land: This node contains references to land and land rights/access as well as any form of material property. Discussions of soil quality and soil fertility were coded (5 9) in combination with free nodes for agricultural productivity (F 16) and quality (F 4).

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(5 10) Coping Strategies: Discussions of strategies for meeting basic needs were assigned this code. An example would be seasonal migration in response to food scarcity. (5 11) Migration: References to migration were assigned this code.
(5 12) Information: References to information access or dissemination were assigned this code; assertions about people’s level of awareness about existing food assistance programs, for example, would be coded for food (5 1 4), access (6 7), and information, among other nodes.
(6) Social Relations: The header grouping nodes referring to specific types of social relations and interactions.
(6 1) Social Exclusion: Discussions of a systematic denial of access or services to a specific social group or individual were assigned this code.
(6 2) Risk and Vulnerability: Mentions of a particular sensitivity to an event or occurrence which poses an immediate threat to health and social and/or economic well-being were assigned this code.
(6 2 1) Particular Groups or Individuals Affected
(6 2 2) Everyone Affected
(6 2 3) Periodic
(6 2 4) Constant
(6 2 5) Not Catastrophic
(6 2 6) Catastrophic
(6 3) Social Cohesion: This code was assigned to mentions of social cohesiveness, particularly within the family or community.
(6 4) Social Fragmentation: Used to code passages in which there is reference to the disintegration of social groups, particularly at the household or community level.
(6 5) Effectiveness: Used to refer to the overall level of capacity of a given institution, usually a formal institution, with a specific mandate to provide some type of service. It is almost always used with an Attitude coding.
(6 6) Trust and Confidence: Used to code text in which trust and confidence (or lack thereof) is specifically referred to. It is almost always used with an Attitude coding.
(6 7) Access: Used to refer to access to services, institutions, and/or infrastructure.
This coding is almost always used with an Attitude coding.
(6 8) Security: Often used in conjunction with the Basic Needs codes to indicate issues of food security, etc. Also used in reference to issues of general safety and predictability of physical well-being.
(6 9) Power: Used in reference to power imbalances between people or people and institutions, or in reference to specific powers ascribed or denied specific people and/or institutions.
(6 10) Gender Relations: Used in reference to mentions of socialized norms of behavior concerning relations between men and women, particularly differential

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roles, treatments, preferences, and access to opportunities and services among men and women.
(7) Attitudes: The header for nodes identifying qualitative assessments by the subjects and/or author of the reports of a variety of institutional and interpersonal relationships. (7 1) Happiness and Satisfaction: Indicates happiness/satisfaction on the part of the subject. (7 2) Unhappiness and Dissatisfaction: Indicates unhappiness/dissatisfaction on the part of the subject.
(7 3) Positive: Indicates a positive assessment on the part of the researcher.
(7 4) Negative: Indicates a negative assessment on the part of the researcher.

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Appendix 4: Systematic Content Analysis Using QSR NUD*IST
Once a text is formatted as a QSR NUD*IST file, that text can be retrieved and assigned coding. After an entire file is coded, QSR NUD*IST can be queried concerning frequencies of certain themes and how they occur in conjunction with other themes. For instance, in the course of the analysis, one might want to know everything that women said about exclusion from informal credit associations. A preliminary inquiry would likely search for the intersection of the nodes women’s voices, social exclusion, and informal credit associations. QSR NUD*IST then searches automatically through every coded text unit in each of the reports to identify and retrieve all text units assigned this combination of codes. Once coding was completed, the program generated matrices showing the frequencies of theme intersections within text units. This made it possible to determine the frequency with which certain themes appeared in proximity to one another.
These frequency matrices formed a heuristic framework from which the reports were analyzed. The index tree in QSR NUD*IST allowed each coder to assign a given text unit a string of codes to provide maximum detail regarding unit content, depth, and tone. For example, a discussion of women expressing distress over the inadequacy of access to drinking water infrastructure in their village may be coded in a string containing nodes (3
1) women’s voice (if there is quoted speech); (4 1) women as subject; (5 1 4) water; (6 7) access; (7 2) unhappiness/dissatisfaction; (7 4) negative; (F 6) infrastructure. Because the nodes were not mutually exclusive, it was expected that coding varied somewhat from coder to coder. In the above example, for instance, one coder may have coded for infrastructure while another may not have done so (since lack of access can on the one hand be an implied lack of infrastructure, but on the other hand there may not have been a specific mention of infrastructure). Similarly, one may have coded for “security” as well as a way of indicating an issue of water security. In this way the nodes were used as devices to reveal patterns across text units in an iterative, structured process of node intersection examination. (See Appendix 5.)
The index tree is the result of several iterations. One of QSR NUD*IST’s strengths is its capacity to incorporate emergent themes into the analysis through coding tree modifications and additions. Because of this, our coding schema changed considerably over time as nodes were added (and occasionally merged if the conceptual overlap was too great). We confronted the problem of coding stability principally by making inquiries of texts using multiple methods (e.g. string searches) and making multiple intersection searches using a series of related nodes. For example, when the research team revisited their original definitions of poverty node, they noticed a great many references to the psychological effects of poverty. A new node, psychological effects, was developed.
When this node was revisited, the research team noted that humiliation was a constant theme throughout the reports. A text search for the word “humiliation” confirmed this particular dimension of poverty. In this way, QSR NUD*IST was used as a tool to deepen the understanding of the definition of poverty and to “let the data speak.” The investigation of emergent themes (such as humiliation) involved an iterative exploration of the data. This was done through a process of consistently examining whole sets of

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related codes and coding intersections. For instance, in looking for examples of humiliation, we not only looked at that particular node, but also at other related nodes, such as psychological effects, conflict and crime, culture and identity and others, as deemed appropriate, all of which were felt to fall within a larger encompassing conceptual domain. We also used the string search capabilities of QSR NUD*IST to locate key words and phrases related to the concept under investigation. And finally, throughout the analysis, we referred back to the original documents themselves. Clearly there is always a degree to which the researcher is present in the interpretation of the meaning of poverty. But with a sensitive and reflective analysis, the voices of the poor may be amplified, not muffled, by the researcher.

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Appendix 5: Node Intersections
After all document coding was completed, most data analysis was completed by first generating tables of node intersections using QSR NUD*IST. These tables indicated the number of text units that shared specified coding. The following table shows the number of node intersections belonging to the node definitions of poverty and a grouping of other selected nodes:
Intersections for Definitions of Poverty vs. Selected Nodes
Node
Intersections with Definitions of Poverty
Health Care
132
Education
185
Economic Livelihood
237
Infrastructure
126
Basic Needs: Food
122
Basic Needs: Shelter
75
Basic Needs: Clothing
28
Basic Needs: Water
71
While the table of intersections gives little indication of the contents at the intersections, it does indicate of the relative frequency with which intersections appear. Intersections with the greatest frequencies were explored first, while those with fewer frequencies were explored later in the analysis. From the intersections, reports were generated from QSR
NUD*IST including all text from all of the Poverty Assessment documents within which a given coding intersection appears. These reports could (and frequently were) restricted by other nodes or criteria in order to determine what differences may have existed between those text units coded with women’s voices only as opposed to men’s voices only, or to confine intersection searches to specific regions or countries.
Below is a node intersection comprised by a set of text units coded for both definition of poverty and basic needs: water. It represents two of all 71 text units that are coded for both of these nodes. Text units are delimited by hard returns (as in the end of a paragraph or bulleted point). Multiple text units were frequently blocked and coded together, based on the extent to which they shared some meaningful phenomenological unity related to the node being coded. Because of this, although there are 71 text units that are coded for both nodes, there are actually only a total of eight intersections because many of the intersections have multiple text units (just as the example below contains two text units).
For this reason intersection tables provide only a general guide to the actual amount of text coded at a particular intersection and the number of de facto intersections.

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Sample Text Intersection for the Nodes
Definitions of Poverty and Basic Needs: Water
+++ON-LINE DOCUMENT: !107 Bangladesh
+++Retrieval for this document: 2 units out of 819, = 0.24%
++Text units 20-21
13. Other important problems of the rural poor are shortage of cash, insufficient food, lack of safe drinking water, shortage of capital, lack of sanitary latrines and insufficient clothing.
14. Both men and women in slums indicated that access to safe drinking water is the most important problem. Much time and money is invested in fetching drinking water.
Once an intersection report of the entire set of text units for an intersection was generated, the set of text units was then read and analyzed for emergent themes. This analysis was recorded for each set of intersections and completed with a brief summary.

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Appendix 6: Sample Analysis Procedure: Institutions
For the purposes of this study, data coded for references to “formal institutions” and/or
“political parties” and/or “law” are included in the category of formal institution, while community/social groups are differentiated from the informal category to highlight data coded for “social groups” and/or “women’s associations” and/or “men’s associations” and/or “elderly associations” and/or “religious associations” and/or “non-governmental organizations” and/or “community-based organizations.” Data coded for “family, household” and/or “marriage” are included in the set of text units for this category.
Data sets were generated by assembling text units with intersecting coding; that is, text units coded for “formal institutions” and “effectiveness,” “informal institutions” and
“effectiveness,” “community associations” and “effectiveness,” and so on were queried and analyzed. The data sets were disaggregated by gender in order to distinguish between men’s and women’s reports of their experience with institutions. The tables below indicate a general pattern of topical coverage in the data. Formal institutions, for example, appear to be discussed far more frequently in the PPAs than informal institutions or social groups and associations.
In general, discussions about institutions focused on access, effectiveness, trust, and power. These dimensions of institutional interaction were often addressed in negative terms. Topics of access emerged in every institutional category while people tended to emphasize power in the formal and informal spheres and safety in the informal and household spheres. Data coded for references to men tends to focus on issues of quality and access in the formal and informal spheres, while data coded for women concentrates on formal institutions and the household on access, trust, and effectiveness; in the household category there are also many references to security and safety.
The matrices below indicate the number of text units in the data set coded for the listed variables. Text unit counts should be read with a note of caution, however, since the size of a text unit was not uniform throughout the data. In addition, since the coding categories were not designed to be mutually exclusive, values in different cells in the table may represent the same text unit coded for multiple variables. These matrices should be used as a heuristic tool rather than be read as a definitive statement of which topics were reported most frequently by respondents.
Variables were assigned the values “positive” and “negative” when there were explicit references to these values in the text. Otherwise, data was coded as “neutral.” A discussion of the effectiveness of a government housing subsidy program, for instance, would be coded for “effectiveness” and “formal.” In most cases, an explicit reference to the positive or negative effectiveness of the program would be coded accordingly.

249

Data Output Matrices: number of text units coded at each intersection:
Neutral Node 3 and Institutions, no gender coding
Indicators
+ive effective
-ive effective
Effective neutral
+ive trust
-ive trust
Trust neutral
+ive access
-ive access
Access neutral
+ive security & safety
-ive security and safety
Safety neutral
+ive power
-ive power
Power neutral
Change
Quality
Information

Formal
Government
10
67
115
2
60
110
7
107
197
4
13
39
0
8
90
19
69
39

Informal
0
35
19
0
16
16
4
136
194
0
38
55
2
23
67
12
42
55

Social Groups,
Associations
3
19
47
2
12
20
1
5
61
0
2
21
1
6
43
0
2
16

Family, Household
0
13
6
1
15
20
2
71
133
0
15
86
1
2
21
32
22
3

Node 3 and Institutions, coded for men
Third Node
+ive effective
-ive effective
Effective neutral
+ive trust
-ive trust
Trust neutral
+ive access
-ive access
Access neutral
+ive security & safety
-ive security and safety
Safety neutral
+ive power
-ive power
Power neutral
Change
Quality
Information

Formal,
Governments
0
3
7
0
0
6
6
3
2
0
0
0
0
0
2
0
12
0

Informal
0
0
3
1
0
1
6
1
16
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
14
0

250

Social Groups,
Associations
0
0
1
0
1
3
6
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
8
0

Family, Household
0
3
0
0
3
3
0
5
9
0
4
1
0
1
6
2
2
0

Node 3 and Institutions, coded for women
Third Node
+ive effective
-ive effective
Effective neutral
+ive trust
-ive trust
Trust neutral
+ive access
-ive access
Access neutral
+ive security and safety
-ive security and safety
Safety neutral
+ive power
-ive power
Power neutral
Change
Quality
Information

Formal,
Governments
1
18
26
0
19
39
6
18
28
0
0
20
0
2
23
1
11
45

Informal
0
1
10
0
1
1
7
18
15
1
6
2
0
1
9
0
12
0

251

Social Groups,
Associations
0
0
8
0
1
1
6
8
9
0
0
1
0
0
2
1
6
6

Family, Household
0
4
1
0
6
6
2
39
27
1
35
23
0
4
16
6
8
5

Appendix 7: Sample Summary Table — A selection from a table of summarized text units
Summary: Node 3 and Institutions/Restricted for Women
Intersection
Negative effective and formal institutions
Formal and effectiveness Formal and trust

Number
1

Country
Ukraine

5

Ukraine

65

Moldova

10

Togo

8

Pakistan

63, 64
6*

Pakistan
Ukraine

9

Costa Rica

Women confront more barriers to access agricultural support services

23*

Cameroon

35

Moldova

62

Pakistan

44

Moldova

13

India

51

Latvia

60

Moldova

40

Kenya

54

Pakistan

Informal and negative access 39

Kenya

Formal and negative access Formal and safety

33

Vietnam

17

Zambia

Family and access

57

Bangladesh

Family and access

59

Uganda

Formal and access

53

Guinea
Bissau

Women have little chance of voicing their opinions…good quotation voicing their opinions…good quotation
Woman is unaware of the entitlements due to her for her children
Widows and disabled get insufficient support that’s unreliable
Young woman who cannot register for unemployment assistance
Pregnant women not eating as much to make room for embryo
“Women don’t complain about their health” Afraid to go to the doctor due to anticipated expense
Women treat most illnesses with traditional herbs
Women can’t go to hospital without a man’s permission and accompaniment
Access to health care for female-headed households is a challenge…mothers use credit or borrow from friends and family
Women cannot afford health care they desire for themselves or their children
Women access land through their husbands Access to land as a priority for poor women Women completely alienated from land they used to be able to access through males Land resources are owned by the state and women cannot inherit or have direct rights over land

Informal and effectiveness Formal and effectiveness Formal and trust
Formal and effectiveness Formal and effectiveness Formal and negative access Formal and trust

Formal and negative safety Family and negative access Family and access
Informal and negative access Formal and access

Comments
Official insults a woman who has too many children
Shame of poverty fading…getting used to it
Poor feel abandoned by the authorities who once looked out for them
Shame at selling peanuts on the street with a university degree
Complaints as risky
Money taken from widows by officials
Quote about the government taking away whatever it gives

252

Theme
Humiliation in service delivery Trust
Pride
Corruption and options

Inaccessibility of social services/government or effectiveness Healthcare institutions/health Land

Appendix 8: Listing of Poverty Assessment Reports Analyzed for this Research
Africa and the Middle East
Country
Bénin
Toward a Poverty
Alleviation Strategy

Date
1994

Sample
Twenty-two villages and four urban communities drawn from across five regions. Poorest Communities based on a comparison of soils, road networks, poverty levels, levels of food expenditures were selected for study.

Burkina Faso
Visual Participatory
Poverty Assessment

1994

Cameroon
Diversity, Growth and Poverty
Reduction

1995

Ethiopia
Participatory Poverty
Assessment for
Ethiopia

1998

Republic of Gabon
Poverty in a RentBased Economy

1997

Households and villages from four regions, including Toussiana, Damesma,
Boureye, and Ouagadougou, were selected according to ecological and ethnic variation, community size, and accessibility for the sample. The choice of villages influenced by the presence of local NGOs to act as intermediaries. Up to ten males per village were chosen from initial village meetings to take pictures; subsequently others would take pictures which would then be discussed in common. A total of 125 Burkinabe took pictures, and a much larger number of participants were interviewed, either individually or in groups. The sample included 1,559 households and 150 key informants, selected across five zones. Villages were selected according to the frequency with which they were ranked as poor by key informants. Within the selected villages the sample was representative according to age, gender, occupation, and rural and urban zones.
Ten sites that were chosen to represent a variety of various agro-ecological, zones, ethnic compositions and modes of livelihood. Six rural sites, in the
Oromia, Amhara, and SNPPR regions and four urban sites in the Addis Ababa region were selected. Six sites were poor, two were middle income, and two were affluent. In urban areas, the sample included those living in shantytowns or sub-standard dwellings and who were considered poor by neighborhood and village leaders. Interviews with managers and development workers in various government representatives were also conducted
The sample included 277 individuals and 48 focus groups of six to ten people each. Various age groups were represented Both men and women were interviewed, (55 percent women and 45 percent men).

253

Methodology
Group discussions with village elders, young people, handicapped, and widows; life histories of participants, semi-structured interviews, social mapping, interviews with key informants, and children’s drawings.
This study utilized a Visual PPA that included photography, conversations, focus groups, written interviews, and triangulation with NGOs who were active in the village.

Methods included conversational interviews, focus groups, transect walks, mapping, participant observation, and case histories. Methods included social mapping, wealth ranking, livelihood analysis, trend and seasonality analysis, institutional diagrams, matrix ranking and scoring, and timelines.

Methods included open-ended interviews and focus groups.

Ghana
Poverty
Assessment in Ghana
Using Qualitative and
Participatory
Research Methods

1995

Ghana
Poverty Past, Present and Future
Guinea-Bissau
Poverty Assessment and Social Sectors
Strategy Review
Kenya
Coping Without
Coping: What Poor
People say about
Poverty in Kenya

1995

This study was conducted over three phases and in fifteen communities selected to be representative of different geographical, agro-ecological, socioeconomic zones, ethnic/cultural groupings, level of access to services and infrastructure, and level of integration with markets. The areas studied included the Upper East Region, the Upper West region, the Western Region,
Greater Accra Region, Volta Region, Northern Region, Brong Ahafo Region, and the Central Region.
Same as Ghana 1995, Above

Methods included conversational and semistructured interviewing, wealth ranking, matrix ranking and scoring, institutional diagramming, seasonality diagramming, and participatory mapping.

The PPA utilized semi-structured interviews and focus groups to collect data on the community’s assessments of its own needs.
Desk review, and case studies of poor households by a local sociologist.

1994

The poverty assessment synthesized a number of recent studies and reports by the World Bank and other institutions, and was also informed by the GuineaBissau 1991 Household income and expenditure survey.

1997

The study was conducted in seven districts, including Kajiado, Kisumu,
Makueni, Mombasa, Nakuru, Nyeri, and Taita Taveta. Within each district, 10 study sites were chosen and were selected across agro-ecological zones.
Mombasa was the only urban area chosen for the study.

Kenya
Learning from the
Poor: A
Participatory Poverty
Assessment in Kenya

1996

Madagascar
Poverty Assessment

1996

This study was conducted in seven of the poorest rural districts and one lowincome urban area. Five communities were randomly selected within each district for the PPA. Total sample was 3000, including interviews with fifteen households ranked poor or very poor participated from each community. In addition, 150 female-headed households from two Nairobi slums were interviewed. Four regions were selected for study to represent different agro-ecological zones, levels of income, and modes of livelihood. Overall, a total of 2,582 poor households were involved in focus groups or one-to-one interviews. In addition, approximately 100 interviews were conducted with community leaders, service providers, and government officials.

Madagascar
PPA Synthesis Report
Mali
Assessment of Living
Conditions
Mali
Qualitative Study on the Demand for
Education

1994

Same as Madagascar 1996, above

Same as Madagascar 1996, above

1993

The study took place in Kayes, Sikasso, and Mopti and in Bamako regions.

1992

The sample consisted of twelve villages in four different regions. The regions were chosen according to their levels of demand for education, measured by average enrollment ratios.

Beneficiary Assessment, semi-structured interviews, participatory exercises and children '’ drawings.
The methods included participant observation and interviews.

254

Various open-ended research techniques were used in the communities, including social mapping, Venn diagram and threepile sorting, focus group discussions, interviews, gender analyses and case studies. Methods included mapping, wealth ranking, seasonal analysis, trend and price analysis, focus group discussions, key informant interviews, problem identification, gender analysis, household questionnaires, and school questionnaires.
Methods included structured conversational interviews, focus group interviews with locals, participant observation, and institutional appraisal.

Niger
Poverty Assessment:
A Resilient People in a Harsh Environment

1996

The sample covered rural and urban areas and the poorest sections of the capital city, Niamey. In depth interviews were conducted with approximately
100 people including married women, young women, the unemployed, students, and street children; and groups of beggars, cooperatives of the disabled, a neighborhood patrol, a savings group, women engaged in petty trade, and migrants. 200 people approximately were interviewed in rural areas.
In addition, approximately 190 villagers were interviewed, either individually or in focus groups, from twelve villages in three rural areas.

The methods included informal interviews, open-ended questionnaires, participatory tools and discussion groups.

Nigeria
Participatory Poverty
Assessment
(Consultant’s Report)

1995

The study was conducted in 10 states (Akwa Ibom, Benue, Cross River,
Kaduna, Kwara, Lagos, Ondo, Osun, Oyo and Sokoto), 37 urban areas, and 58 rural areas. Interviews were conducted with the poorest individuals and households within certain communities. Local leaders helped researchers identify and contact the poorest groups..

Nigeria
Poverty in the Midst of Plenty: The
Challenge of Growth with Inclusion

1996

With the help of state and local government leaders, fourteen teams of experienced Nigerian researchers selected 95 communities from 45 LGAs .
Rural and urban communities were chosen based on the proportion of poor people they contained. The sample included sites in Oyo State, Benne State, and Osun State. Total sample was over 2,000.

Study teams used individual in-depth interviews and Focus Group Discussions covering a set of seven topics. Other methods included surveys, field observation, case studies and secondary review were also utilized.
Methods included individual and group discussions, as well as interviews with government leaders.

Nigeria
Hard Lessons:
Primary Schools,
Community and
Social Capital
Rwanda
Etude Participative
Sur L’Evolution de la
Pauvrété au Rwanda

1997

Fifty-four schools were selected from six zones of Nigeria. Eighteen local government education leaders, 540 parents, and 180 pupils were sampled purposively to represent the main ecological and socio-linguistic categories.

The methods included semi-structured interviews, focus groups, participant observation, brief questionnaires, and documentary analysis.

1998

The study was carried out 12 areas of 12 municipalities in 9 prefectures. These were selected according to 11 criteria, in order to evaluate the change in poverty since 1993. The criteria included agro-ecological zone, socioeconomic level, economic potential, rural-urban, migration, effects of the war, population density, access to services, roads, type of employment.

The methods included social mapping, wealth-ranking, matrices, transect walks,
Venn diagrams, impact trees, chapatti diagrams. Focus group discussions, home visits, and secondary data were also used.

Senegal
An Assessment of
Living Conditions

1995

The material in this report is based on the findings of a mission to Senegal led by the World Bank. Additional information comes from the first household
Priority Survey that was completed in 1993.

A household survey , desk review and key informant interviews.

255

South Africa
Experience and
Perceptions of
Poverty in South
Africa

1998

Researchers from 20 different organizations worked in 25 communities, 10 of which were in Kwa-Zulu Natal, 7 in the Eastern cape, and 4 in the Northern
Province. These are the poorest provinces in South Africa, excluding Gauteng and the Free State, and involved approximately 1,400 respondents.

PRA methods were used in 17 of the communities. The remaining studies used combinations of participant observation, focus group discussions, conversational and semi-structured interviewing, literature review, and workshops.

Swaziland
Poverty Assessment by the Poor

1997

Four agro-ecological regions and 63 communities were chosen for the PPA.
Altogether more than 600 households, 100 focus groups, and 100 key informants participated in the analysis. The site selection was based on the ecological zones rather than social formations, and actual sites were thus chosen based on the land tenure system.

Tanzania
Voices of the Poor:
Poverty and Social
Capital in Tanzania

1997

87 villages, chosen to be nationally representative of rural areas spread throughout the country. Fifteen households from each village were selected for the household survey – household that had also contributed to the national agricultural survey. In addition, researchers convened ‘groups’ for discussion.
A total of more than 6,000 participants were included in the study.

Togo
Overcoming the
Crisis, Overcoming
Poverty: A World
Bank Poverty
Assessment
Uganda
Desk Review of
Participatory
Approaches to
Assessing Poverty in
Uganda
Uganda
Participatory Poverty
Assessment:
Perspectives of the
Poor

1996

The sample for this study included individuals and households from rural communities and urban neighborhoods.

Methods included large and small focus groups and semi-structured interviews; participatory methods included social mapping, trend analysis, wealth ranking, preference ranking of sources of finance, institutional diagrams, and gender analysis.
Two participatory methods were used in this study: PRA (Participatory Rapid
Appraisal) and SARAR (Self-esteem,
Resourcefulness, Action Planning, and
Responsibility). Tools included mappings, wealth ranking, seasonal analysis, price analysis, Venn diagrams, problem identification, gender analysis, key informant interviews, household surveys, and District-level workshops.
Methods included semi-structured interviews covering subjects such as problem hierarchies, perceived solutions, and assessments of survival strategies.
Some life histories were also collected.

1998

This study is a desk review of 56 studies that have utilized participatory approaches of data collection to assess poverty in Uganda.

The reports used for the study utilized PPA approaches that included PRA, RRA, household surveys, and secondary documented information sources.

1999

Twenty four rural and twelve urban sites in nine of the most disadvantaged districts were purposively selected in order to capture the multiple facets of poverty in Uganda. The purposive sampling involved the identification of 3 rural and 1 urban community in each district.

Consultations with different groups used
PRA methods. The methodology included focus group discussions, case studies, and key informant interviews.

256

Yemen
The World Bank
Yemen Child
Development Project:
Social Assessment
Yemen
Yemen Civil Service
Modernization
Program: Social and
Institutional
Assessment

1999

The study sample included 12 village clusters, 6 districts, and 2 Northern governorates. The villages involved in the social assessment are among the most geographically isolated and severely lacking in social services and infrastructure. 1998

Zambia
Poverty Assessment

1994

The assessment analyzed existing data on the civil service. A total of 78 indepth interviews and a number of focus group discussions including 110 respondents, 67 men and 43 women, were also conducted. An attitudinal
Survey of Civil Servants was carried out for a stratified sample of 403 respondents, of which 71 percent were male and 29 percent female.
Respondents were selected from 6 Ministries in five governorates (Sana’a
Capital and governorate, Taiz, Aden and Lahej). Sixteen focus group discussions were held.
Six rural and four urban areas each comprising of at least one and often several rural villages, urban slums, or shanty compounds. These sites were selected to represent different mode of livelihood, cultural/ethnic group, agro-ecological zone, access to infrastructure and services, and integration with markets.

Zambia
Listening to Farmers:
Participatory
Assessment of Policy
Reform in Zambia’s
Agricultural Sector

1997

Ten low-income communities, selected across regions to represent different modes of livelihood, ethnic groups, agro-ecological zones, levels of access to infrastructure, and levels of integration with markets.

257

Project stakeholders were asked to discuss their problems and coping strategies, and to suggest solutions to several pertinent issues, such as health, female education, and water and sanitation.
The studies used survey instruments (with both closed and open-ended questions), focus group discussions, and direct observation. Methods included unstructured or semistructured interviews, focus group discussions, mapping, time lines, wealthranking, seasonal calendars, and livelihood analysis. Methods included conversational interviewing, focus groups discussions, case studies, and participant observation.

Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union
Country
Armenia
Children’s DeInstitutionalization
Initiative: Children in
Institutions
Armenia
Social Assessment
Report on the
Education and Health
Sectors in Armenia

Date
1999

Sample
Two boarding schools were selected for the study, one of which was for the mentally ill. Within each school, target groups were organized to include 60 families, 52 children, 9 ex-boarders, and various service providers, institutional staff, and members of the general community.

Methodology
Qualitative open-ended, one-on-one interviews and focus groups with families, key informants, and other groups in society identified as relevant to the study.

1996

Three urban and four rural sites were chosen to represent various differences around the country. The specific sites chosen included Yerevan, Gumri, Sisian
Town in urban zones, and Lusarpiur (Shirak Region), Darbas (Sunik Region),
Lor (Sunik Region), and Shahap (Ararat Region) in rural zones. Qualitative research was undertaken with 12 focus groups of users, as well as open-ended interviews with both users and service providers.

Methodologies for the education and health sectors included quantitative and qualitative research. The qualitative research included focus groups, open-ended interviews, and observation. Armenia
A Qualitative
Assessment of the
Living Standards of the Armenian
Population

1995

The sample included approximately 700 poor and medium-income households
(but mostly poor). Interviews with key informants such as village, district, and city officials; medical personnel; psychologists; teachers; and NGOs were also carried out. The districts involved in the study were Akhurian and Spitak,
Tashir, Vardenis, Vaik, Goris, and Yerevan – six districts that were considered to be moderately poor to poor.

The methodologies for this study included semi-structured interviews, focus groups, street conversations and spontaneous street meetings, and direct observation.

Azerbaijan
Poverty Assessment

1997

The data comes from community assessments in 91 communities (25 cities, 5 towns, 61 villages) and a Social Assessment involving 140 poor or vulnerable respondents (pensioners, internally displaced persons, students, unemployed, educational or medical workers, agricultural workers) conducted between
August 1995 and January 1996.

Georgia
Poverty in Georgia:
The Social
Dimensions of
Transition

1997

The data in this report comes from 600 households, chosen on the basis of poverty and vulnerability. The study spanned nine regions, to include various ecological zones, agricultural conditions, urban and rural settings, ethnic communities, and population groups. Interviewers also spoke with local officials, doctors, teachers, and other members of the community.

The methodology for this study combines semi-structured focus groups of 5-8 respondents lasting 1.5 to 2 hours, and also community surveys. This assessment was done in tandem with a 1995 national household survey.
Methodologies for this study included observation, informal discussions, and interviews. Latvia
Report on the
Qualitative Analysis
Research into the
Living Standards of
Inhabitants in
Aluksne District

1997

This was a small sample study of less than 100 in-depth interviews with poor families in the Aluksne district and the urban Livani region. Participants were selected across age, gender, and professional and employment experience.

258

The methodology for this study included surveys and interviews that asked about the conditions for the families, conditions in the surrounding area, livelihoods, social assistance programs, education, and health and food issues.

Latvia
Listening to the Poor:
A Social Assessment of Poverty in Latvia

1998

The study involved semi-structured interviews with 400 households and 20 local experts. Purposive sampling ensured that different geographic, economic and cultural regions were included, as well as a selection of household types most likely to be poor.

Qualitative data was collected through semi-structured interviews.

Macedonia
Qualitative Analysis of the Living
Standard of the
Population of the
Republic of
Macedonia
Moldova
Poverty in Moldova:
The Social
Dimension of the
Transition

1998

The sample covered 400 poor households, which reflect the urban-rural distribution of the country. 100 households were interviewed from each region. 200 households were under the poverty line; the other 200 were randomly selected.

The methodology for this report focused on questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. 1997

The sample for this report covered 200 poor individuals and households from six districts. Researchers selected participants to include a range of ages, occupations, and household types.

Research methodologies focused on qualitative open-ended interviews and careful observation of those interviewed.

Ukraine
Ethnographic Study of Poverty in Ukraine

1996

The sample included 500 poor households selected across five urban and rural regions (Donetsk Oblast, Crimea, Kiev Oblast, Kharkiv Oblast, and IvanoFrankivsk Oblast). In all regions except the Crimea, 50 interviews were conducted in the largest city, and 50 in the villages. 28% of respondents were male; 72% were female, as women were more willing to speak of poverty.

The methodology focused on observation and semi-structured interviews.

259

East Asia
Country

Date

Sample

Methodology

Cambodia
The Social Impact of the Creeping Crisis in
Cambodia:
Perceptions of Poor
Communities
China
Anning Valley
Agricultural
Development Project:
Summary of a Social
Assessment(Annex
10)
Indonesia
Local Capacity and its Implications for
Development: The
Case of Indonesia. A
Preliminary Report:
Local Level
Institutions Study
Indonesia
Village Governments and their
Communities: Allies of Adversaries
Indonesia
South Kalimantan
Agriculture Area
Development Project

1998

This report is based on rapid field research undertaken in April-May 1998 in
Phnom Penh, and the provinces of Battambang, Siem Reap, Kompong Cham and Kandal. Community groups, NGOs, and government officials were also interviewed individually and in groups.

The field research employed SemiStructured interviews, focus group discussions, observation during field visits, and a range of participatory techniques.

1997

This project area involves a total of fifteen county-level administrative units and 615,580 households

The study used survey techniques.

1999

Sample of 48 villages in three provinces, Jambi, Central Java and Nusa
Tenggara Timur. In each village interviews were conducted with 25 households randomly selected; total household survey sample 1200, discussions were held with village officials, project sites visited. Method-

Household survey, observation, key informant interviews and discussion groups.

1998

Same as above

Same as above

1997

The Social Assessment covers 20 villages in 5 kabupatens, which were purposively selected as representative of the range of agro-ecological zones, socioeconomic conditions and farming systems present in the South
Kalimantan Project Area. The kabupatens were Tabalong, Hulu Sungai Utara,
Hulu Sungai Tengah, Hulu Sungai Selatan, and Tapin. In addition, 140 household interviews were conducted.

The methodology used Farming Systems
Diagnosis (developed by GTZ, and field visits. PRA techniques were used with focus groups in the field, in addition to household interviews and interviews with key informants. 260

Philippines
Mindanao Rural
Development Project
Social Assessment:
Key Findings for
Cotabato and Sultan
Kudarat
Thailand
Social Aspects of the
Crisis: Perceptions of
Poor Communities in
Thailand

1999

Sample 2000 community resident from 90 Barangays randomly selected after clustering based on agro-ecological zones. 1350 households participated in the survey and 120 focus group discussion in 60 Barangays.
Methods used included household survey and focus group discussions.

1998

Vietnam
Social Issues

1996

The sample for this study included six focus groups and in-depth interviews with 4 NGOs, 3 communities, 4 associations, 2 academic institutions, 3 donors, the Chamber of Commerce and the Government. The focus groups were: Labor and Slums NGO Networks, Women, Children and AIDS NGO
Networks, Slum dwellers of Teparak Terminus, Khon Kaen, NE Province,
Government extension departments, Handicapped NGO Networks, and Slum
Dwellers in Bangkok.
The Social Assessment was undertaken to understand the consequences of establishing protected areas. In this regard, 13 villages were selected as the site for their PRA and RRA studies, based on their near vicinity to parks and reserves and their different ethnic composition. The villages were located in the provinces of Dong Nai, Lam Dong and Song Be.

Vietnam
Ha Tinh
Participatory Poverty
Assessment

1999

For the sample, six districts were selected. One commune from each district was randomly selected, and the richest and the poorest villages from each commune were then chosen (the ranking was carried out by commune leaders).
In total, the report is based on data from 302 households in 13 villages.

Vietnam
Pilot Participatory
Poverty Assessment,
Ho Chi Minh City

1999

The study focused on District 11, an urban area located 3 kilometers west of the Hanoi city center. The sample included 120 households from two specified residential quarters (out of four) that were selected based on wealth rankings –
15 poor households, and 3-5 ‘rich’ household were selected for interview in each of 8 clusters. A group of 6-8 children were also interviewed in each cluster. In addition, thirty-seven other interviews were held with separate groups of local leaders, men, women, and children in the same Districts. In total, the report is based on data from approximately 160 interviews.

261

This study utilized focus groups, rapid assessment techniques, and participatory exercises as its primary information and data collecting methods.

The study took place in three stages. The main data collection was part of Stage II, where the Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA) and the Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) methodology focused on visits to all provinces; interviews with farmers, key informants, commune and district staff; and workshops. The methodology included household discussions and exercises, group discussions, separate meetings for men and women, and combined interviews with men and women.
The methodology included SemiStructured interviewing, focus groups, observation, and key informant interviews.

Latin America and the Caribbean
Country
Brazil
A Poverty Assessment

Date
1995

Sample
This report is a poverty analysis based on 17 background papers, and on the
1990 Pesquita Nacional por Amostra de Domicilios de (PNAD), the national household income survey, conducted by Fundacao Instituto Brasileiro de
Geografica e Estatistica (IBGE).

Costa Rica
Identifying the Social
Needs of the Poor: An
Update

1997

The Participatory Poverty Assessment for Costa Rica included 262 households in selected urban areas (Sarapiqui), rural areas, and secondary cities (Buenos
Aires and Puntarenas) and the Central Valley (Guarco and Cartago and Rincon
Grande de Pavas). Community leaders, NGO leaders, and service providers, were also interviewed in each locale.

Ecuador
Rural Poverty in
Ecuador: A
Qualitative
Assessment

1996

Ecuador
Ecuador Poverty
Report

1996

The Rural Qualitative Assessment was undertaken in seven small rural communities: four in the Sierra (Chimborazo and Cotopaxi provinces), two in the Costa (Manabi) and one in the Oriente (Napo). All communities were located in cantons classified as very poor in the Poverty Map of the Consejo
Nacional de Desarrollo. The sample is not representative at a national or regional level, but there is reasonable certainty that the characteristics of selected households reflect those at the community level. There were a total of
176 interviews, in addition to focus groups, of which 92 were with women, 84 with men.
This study included quantitative and qualitative research. The quantitative data in this report is based on the 1994 Ecuador Living Standard Measurement
(LSMS) that included 1,374 rural households. The Poverty Report was also informed by 10 working papers, some of which reflected qualitative work.
One study was conducted in Cisne Dos, a low-income neighborhood in
Guayaquil. Another study reflected the view of poverty in seven poor rural communities in the Andean highlands, the Costa, and the Amazon jungle.

262

Methodology
The report utilized a Beneficiary
Assessment and data from the PNAD.
Background papers involved a variety of quantitative, qualitative and participatory techniques. Methods included, interviews with individuals and groups (i.e. elder’s councils, women’s organizations, local committees); focus group discussions, and unstructured interviews with persons who work with the poor: teachers, local government, health and education personnel, NGOs, extension agents. Four methodologies were used: (1) Key informant interviews with community leaders (such as teachers and physicians);
(2) Semi-structured household interviews with men and women, following a thematic guide; (3) Focus groups that separated men and women; and (4) Direct observation.

Methods included key informant interviews with community leaders, semistructured household-level interviews with men and women, focus groups, and direct observation of household facilities and community infrastructure. For the study done in seven poor rural communities, a
Rural Qualitative Assessment (RQA) was used. El Salvador
Stakeholder
Consultation and
Analysis

1997

El Salvador
Social Assessment:
El Salvador Basic
Education
Modernization
Project
Guatemala
Social Assessment for the Guatemala
Reconstruction and
Local Development
Project (Fonapaz)

1995

Guatemala
Perfil de los Pueblos
Indigenos de
Guatemala

1997

Guatemala
Interim Evaluation
Report: Guatemala
Qualitative and
Participatory Poverty
Study, Phase II

1994

1997

The study was carried out in 56 randomly chosen public schools in El
Salvador; 4 from each department; half rural and half urban. The sample for structured interviews included 281 randomly chosen parents, 57 teachers (30 rural; 27 urban), six focus group discussions with thirty-six public school children in the third grade (selected by their teachers), interviews with eight boys from an all-male religious, semi-private urban school, and interviews with 13 school dropouts under 15 years of age.
The study methodology used 24 focus groups: 8 with teachers in urban areas,
4 with teachers in rural areas, 8 with parents in urban areas and 4 with parents in rural areas. A case study of one school was conducted in Chalchuapa, and in-depth interviews were conducted with the government, school staff, NGOs and donors.

The research utilized questionnaire-led structured interviews, open-ended interviews, and focus group discussions.

The sample for the assessment was drawn from key informants representing eight municipalities, 5 in San Marcos and 3 in Huehuetenango. Consultations included representatives chosen by the communities. In total, 760 persons participated in 8 workshops; there were 96 Focus group discussions, 24 general assemblies, 8 Focus groups with the Mayor and Municipal
Corporation, 32 interviews with government agencies and 48 interviews with
NGOs, cooperatives, and community organizations.
The sample for this study includes a large historical analysis of indigenous marginalization in Guatemala. In addition, researchers used data from interviews with community leaders, village elders, indigenous leaders to obtain information of the current state of the indigenous people in Guatemala. (Note: specific numbers of villages and households are not given)

The methods included Workshops with a series of semi-structured group consultations with 20 to 25 representative, including 2 to 3 representatives from each village. It also included the complete range of PRA exercises with focus groups at three levels, the largest being the municipal.
The methods included conversational interviews with community leaders, village elders, and indigenous leaders; survey participation; and meetings that included focus groups and larger forums, directed toward specific themes, such as land.
The methods included conversational interviews, which followed a thematic guide, meetings, focus groups, and larger forums. A total of 223 interviews were conducted with individuals, families, institutional personnel, and local leaders. The individuals and families were identified by other community members as among the poorest in each place.
These interviews lasted 3 hours; key informant interviews lasted an average of
5 hours each. Forty-nine percent of those interviewed were chosen from marginal urban areas, while 51 percent were chosen from poor rural areas.
Twenty two focus group discussions were conducted, mostly with local government leaders.

263

The methods included an institutional assessment, and community participation, focus group discussions, in-depth interviews and a case study of an EDUCO school.

627 interviews were conducted with families in eight regions. The Poverty
Map of Guatemala (1993) was used to select the poorest municipalities in each region. Focus groups and interviews were held in the municipal capital; in addition, key informants identified the poorest two settlements, where further interviews were carried out. Other communities were also visited, and the poorest persons in them were interviewed. In addition, interviews were conducted with key informants, such as government authorities, poor persons, nurses, schoolteachers, ministers, and community leaders.
This research was conducted in two phases. The total number of interviews for
Phase I was 447. The families interviewed lived in the poorest marginal urban areas, rural villages, and hamlets within a given municipality in 3 regions.
They were identified by others as poor. Phase II is described above. .In addition, researchers interviewed institutional personal and other individuals who were knowledgeable about the poverty groups under investigation.
This study describes the findings from five urban communities that are broadly representative of Jamaica’s poor urban areas. The study included focus groups of different types (older men, men in a football club, youths, women), as well as semi-structured interviews

The methods included conversational interviews, focus groups, and controlled observation. 1995

Interviews were conducted with a total of 722 persons, divided roughly equally by gender and region. Respondents were a representative sample from towns or neighborhoods in Ciudad Juarez, Zacatecas, Mexico City and its surrounding areas, and Oaxaca. Towns and neighborhoods were chosen which were representative of the places where large concentrations of the poor live.
47 key persons – teachers, health workers, community leaders, government officials, were also interviewed. There were also several focus groups, collective interviews, and 3-5 case studies in each region.

This study used conversational one-on-one interviews, collective interviews, case studies and focus groups.

1998

This study draws qualitative evidence from 12 primary and secondary schools.
At each school, there was a 60-90 minute interview with the entire council, supplemented by focus groups of 3-5 teachers or parents and interviewers with professional staff and school directors. A total of 82 interview sessions
(individual or group) were conducted.

Researchers spent 2 to 3 days in each school conducting interviews and focus groups with teachers, directors, and parents.

1998

This study draws on quantitative and qualitative research. The quantitative data in this report comes from the Living Standards Measurement Survey (LSMS), conducted in 1997, while qualitative information comes from focus groups. In the LSMS questionnaire, social capital was measured by a composite Social
Capital Index, on the basis of which 16 focus groups were selected from every

The primary methods of study included for this report were community questionnaires, statistical analysis, and focus groups.

Guatemala
La Pobreza: Un
Enfoque
Participativo, el caso de Guatemala

1994

Guatemala
Report on the
Guatemala
Qualitative and
Participatory Poverty
Study, Phases I and II
Jamaica
Urban Poverty and
Violence in Jamaica

1993

Mexico
The People’s Voice:
Mexico –
Participatory Poverty
Assessment

Nicaragua
Nicaragua’s
Experiment to
Decentralize Schools:
Views of Parents,
Teachers and
Directors
Panama
Community
Organization, Values and Social Capital in
Panama

1997

264

Methods included interviews using a thematic guide for case studies. For Phase
I, interviews were conducted with family units, talking with as many family members as possible to obtain varied perceptions.
The research utilized a Participatory Urban
Appraisal (PUA) methodology.

Venezuela
Evaluacion Social
Del Proyetco
Promueba

1998

region of Panama: 4 with low social capital, 1 with medium social capital, and
11 with high social capital. 244 persons participated in these focus groups, of which 107 were indigenous. persons.
This study had both quantitative and qualitative components. The quantitative included a total of 2,312 households selected across various regions. The qualitative assessment included interviews with 20 key informants and community leaders (priests, teachers, businessmen, NGO workers) in the three
UPFs. Sixteen focus groups were also organized, of four types: community leaders, women, men, and mixed, for structured discussions.

265

This report is based on data collected through household interviews, focus groups, and interviews with key informants.

South Asia
Country
Bangladesh
UNDP’s 1996 Report on Human
Development in
Bangladesh: A ProPoor Agenda Poor
People’s Perspectives
India
Report on Social
Assessment for the
District Initiatives
Project: Baran
District (Rajasthan)

Date
1996

Sample
Eight rural communities and two urban slum areas were chosen to represent the range of community-level economic impoverishment. A total of 3385 persons participated in 159 PRA discussions, which involved 58 urban villages, and 22 slum areas.

Methodology
Methods included time lines, oral histories, seasonal calendar, problem scoring, institution ranking, and so on. Women and men were sometimes together and sometimes distinct. Results were triangulated. 1997

36 villages in two tehsils were selected for the sample based on criteria such as the number of families living below the poverty line, literacy rates, and access to roads.

The methods included semi-formal small and large group discussions, informal interviews with specific groups, wealth ranking, seasonality analysis, social and resource mapping, gender analysis, case studies, and workshop meetings.

India
Social Assessment in
Tonk District:
Findings of
Fieldwork

1997

33 of the poorest villages from the two blocks in the Tonk District were purposively selected for field inquiry. The sample then stratified villages by size and individuals by wealth and leadership position. Ten of the poorest families were randomly selected for a detailed inquiry in each village, and 8 other poor groups were given special attention.

The PRA utilized a multi-method approach that included focus groups and structured personal interviews.

India
Western Orissa
Participatory Poverty
Profile Study (Orissa)

1998

The sample covered 29 villages, spread across the Bolangir district, in the fieldwork. The study used a combination of random and purposive sampling models based on a number of characteristics, such as skewed land distribution, lack of work and large family literacy rates.

The PRA utilized social mapping, rural mapping, matrix scoring/ranking, trends analysis, semi-structured interviewing, focus group discussion, and Venn diagrams.

India
Social Assessment
Field Report: Guna
District Main Report
(Madhya Pradesh)

1998

Poor or very poor communities and villages were selected based on the occupation and caste of the community members. The number of households selected in each village varied from forty to two hundred.

PRA tools such as focus group discussions, key respondent interviews, transect walks, occupational calendar, timeline, key informants, and wealth ranking were used.

266

India
Social Assessment
Field Report:
Rajgarh District
Main Report
(Madhya Pradesh)
India
Social Assessment
Field Report:
Shivpuri District
Main Report
(Madhya Pradesh)
India
Strategy and
Investment Plan for
Poverty Alleviation
(Andhra Pradesh)

1998

India
Draft Fieldwork
Report: Raisen
District (Madhya
Pradesh)

1997

India
Draft Fieldwork
Report: Sagar
District (Madhya
Pradesh)

1997

1998

1997

The sample selection included members of poor households and marginal communities within chosen villages. Fieldwork was conducted in “pockets of poverty,” located in Rajgarh, Khilchipur, Jirapur, and Biaora blocks. The site selection was based on criteria enumerated in the Desk Review of District
Poverty. The sample size was in accordance with the Technical Proposal approved by Client Organization.
The sample for this report included members of poor households and marginal communities within selected villages. Fieldwork was conducted in the major
“pockets of poverty”, located in Pohri, Kolaeas, Shivpuri, and Pichhore blocks.
Site selection for this study was based on criteria enumerated in the Desk
Review of District Poverty. The sample size was in accordance with the
Technical Proposal approved by Client Organization.
Out of a total of 52 mandals across various districts, 20 of the most backward mandals were chosen, where 16 were located in the forest and dry zone, 2 were in the mineral zone, and 2 were in the irrigation zone. Then, one village from each mandal was selected. Households within the 20 chosen villages were ranked with the help of local leaders according to economic infrastructure, size and composition of the family, assets owned, social status, cropping pattern, and residential condition. Ten percent of the households ranked poorest were randomly selected for the study.
Data from this report comes from four districts and nine blocks covered during the course of study. In the first phase, a total of 1,685 households in 183 villages were sampled. In the second, qualitative, phase, the most backward villages were selected for study.

In all, there were 4 districts and 9 blocks covered during the course of this study. Across the 9 blocks selected, a total of 95 Gram panchayats had been identified. In Phase II, which involved qualitative and participatory analysis,
44 representative gram panchayats were identified in the 4 districts.

267

Methods included PRA tools including transect walks, village mapping, wealth ranking, occupational calendars, timelines, focus group discussions, and key respondent discussions.
The methods included PRA tools such as transect walks, village mapping, wealth ranking, occupational calendars, timelines, focus group discussions, and key respondent discussions.
The methods included interviews with key informants, focus groups, community interviews, direct observation by researchers, and a formal survey of selected households. The methodology for the first phase included quantitative household surveys.
For the second phase, the methodology included PRA techniques such as resource mapping, Venn diagrams, transect walks,
GP mapping, and focus group discussions.
Participants were identified through a participative process with officials, Janpad panchayat representatives, sarpanches, members of the gram sabhas, and community members. The sole criteria for their selection was that they must be representative of a population who are considered the poorest of the poor.

Pakistan
Pakistan Poverty
Assessment: Human
Resources

1996

Pakistan
Social Safety Nets and Social Networks:
Their Role in Poverty
Alleviation

1993

The sample included households, chosen on the basis on their low-income status and the presence of a woman of childbearing age and school age children of both sexes. Low-income houses were identified by members of the
Pakistan Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS), by appearance of the house, or by local members of the community. A total of 101 parents participated.
The study consisted of 10 micro-studies of villages and urban settlements in 8 districts of Sindh and Punjab. The districts were in the most poverty intense zones, and show a range of different ethnic, agro-ecological, cultural and production systems.

268

The methodology included interviews and focus groups with families, teachers, health workers, and family planning providers, separated by gender but not by caste.
Methods included interviews and discussions, PRA tools, and focus groups.
Semi-structured interviews were also held with Government officials, NGOs, and research organizations.

Appendix 9: Dimensions of Poverty
Chambers

Cummins

Doyal & Gough

Finnis

Lasswell

Max-Neef

Nussbaum

Rawls

Schwartz

Galtung

Dimensions of Deprivation

Domains of
Life
Satisfaction

Intermediate
Needs

Basic Human
Values

Human
Values

Human
Needs

Human
Capabilities

Primary Goods

Universal
Values

Human Needs

PARTICIPATION

INDICATOR
RESEARCH

DEVELOPMENT :
BASIC NEEDS

PHILOSOPHY

POLICY
SCIENCES

NGO ACTIVISM

PHILOSOPHY

CROSSCULTURAL
PSYCHOLOGY

PEACE AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Poverty
Social
inferiority
Isolation
Physical weakness Vulnerability
Seasonality
Powerlessness
Humiliation

Material well-being Health
Productivity
Intimacy/ friendship Safety
Community
Emotional well-being Bodily life – health vigour and safety
Knowledge
Skilful
Performance
in work and play Friendship
Marriage
Practical reasonableness Harmony with ultimate source of reality

Skill
Affection
Respect
Rectitude
Power
Enlightenment
Wealth
Well-Being

Subsistence
Protection
Affection
Understanding
Participation
Leisure
Creation
Identity
Freedom

Life
Bodily health
Bodily
integrity
Senses
imagination thought Emotions
Practical
reason
Affiliation
Other species
Play
Control over one’s environment

Nutritional food/water Protective housing Work
Physical
environment
Health care
Security in childhood Significant primary relationships
Physical security
Economic
security
Safe birth control/ childbearing Basic education

PHILOSOPHY

Rights
Liberties
Opportunities
Income and wealth Freedom of movement & choice of occupation Social bases of self respect
Powers and prerogatives of offices and positions of responsibility Power
Achievement
Hedonism
Stimulation
Self-direction
Universalism
Benevolence
Tradition
Conformity
Security

1. Survival needs: to avoid violence individual & collective
2. Well-being needs: to avoid misery nutrition, water, air movement, excretion, sleep, sex protection against climate against diseases against heavy degrading boring work self-expression, dialogue, education
3. Identity needs: to avoid alienation creativity, praxis, work self-actuation, realising potentials well-being, happiness, joy being active subject, not passive client/object challenge and new experiences affection, love, sex; friends, offspring, spouse roots, belongingness, networks, support, esteem understanding social forces social transparency partnership with nature a sense of purpose, of meaning closeness to the transcendental, transpersonal 4. Freedom needs: choice : in receiving/expressing information & opinion of people/places to visit and be visited in consciousness formation in mobilization, confrontation, occupation, job, spouse, goods/services, way of life

269

Adapted from: Alkire, Sabina. 1999. Operationalizing Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach to Human
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