Workshop report

Workshop on the Impacts of Poverty Maps:
Past Experiences and New Applications, Brussels Workshop, May 21st, 2003

Background and Purpose

In response to calls from donor agencies to monitor how effectively poverty maps are able to assist decision makers, UNEP/GRID-Arendal in its communications and outreach role in the joint project, organised a workshop in conjunction with the fourth meeting of the Poverty Environment Partnership (PEP), in May 2003. The PEP is an informal association of donors and development agencies that meet regularly to discuss ways of streamlining activities relating to poverty and environment. This meeting was chosen as an opportunity to meet with a wide range of current and potential users of poverty maps, and to find opportunities for integrating poverty mapping into a variety of applications.

This workshop was designed to take stock of previous experiences in poverty mapping and the ways in which policymaking and programme development have been influenced; and to propose ways of enhancing the effectiveness of poverty maps, as well as extending their application to new areas such as planning for food security and environmental management. It was designed to solicit feedback from national and international development agencies on the effectiveness of poverty maps in setting priorities, formulating development policies, locating most needy areas, and monitoring programme implementation.

Specific objectives were to:

Present case studies on where and how poverty maps have been used, especially to analyse poverty-environment linkages, and how effective they have been in targeting development projects at the most needy areas;
Define the priority needs of developing countries, including conceptual, practical, application, and training and financial needs; and,
Look for opportunities to expand the application of poverty maps through new partnerships, development assistance programmes, policy initiatives, and other activities.

See the Agenda of the workshop

Session 1: Keynote Address

Participants introduced themselves (Participants list, PDF 0.3 MB). Participants’ interest in poverty mapping ranged from no particular interest or awareness, to experience in development or use of poverty maps, to potential users (in field of environmental assessment, implementation of policies and IEAs e.g. UNCCD), to sceptical non-users. Presentations were made on the FIVIMS initiative on food security information and use (Maarten Immick, FAO) and on the joint FAO/CGIAR/UNEP project on poverty and food insecurity mapping (Ergin Ataman, FAO). An overview of the context and objectives of the workshop was given by Anna Balance (UNEP/GRID-Arendal). See Presentations. The discussion in this session was limited to questions of clarity on each of the projects mentioned.

Session 2: Users Perspective on Experiences with Poverty Maps

Various presentations on the use and impact of poverty maps were given. Tim Robinson (FAO) discussed the application of poverty maps to livestock policies; Arnaud Comolet (UNDP) provided a review of the use of poverty/environment mapping in Rwanda; David Healy (Stone Environmental) presented the development of a poverty information system in Niger and Mali; David Sui (Texas University) discussed how the definition of poverty maps has changed and the limitation of maps; and Norbert Henninger (WRI) presented a summary of various poverty mapping case studies and methodologies. See Presentations.

Session 3: What Are the Benefits of and Priority Needs to Support Poverty Map Applications?

The background review document that had been prepared by Mathilde Snel and sent to participants in advance was used as the backbone of this discussion (See Background). The participants were given 10 minutes to prepare an input based on the background material and the presentations. A round table was subsequently taken in which each participant was asked to briefly share where they thought poverty/environment mapping has been and/or could be useful to their organisations and activities. Furthermore participants were asked to suggest (based on their experiences) priority needs to help enhance poverty mapping use. Inputs are summarised in the table below:

Application	Impacts	How the impacts can be enhanced
Within donor or development agencies to raise awareness (CIDA).	Enhanced communication on poverty/environment linkages.	Collaborative approaches (donors, developing countries, etc.)Better understanding of how decision makers make decisions so that we can influence at appropriate stages.
Within developing countries to locate the most needy or vulnerable areas (CIDA).	Health & education planning and implementation of plans; agricultural development.	Local level participationValidation of data/assessmentsSustaining the effort (e.g. keeping well trained individuals).
Within developing countries to help decision makers set priorities (Uganda).	e.g. health planning; biomass mapping and monitoring.	Sustainable fundingStreamlining data collection and analysis with other applications to enhance cost effectiveness.
Within countries to enhance understanding and tracking of poverty/environment linkages (DFID).	Tracking service delivery e.g. in Egypt; this shows how poverty/environment mapping can be used to identify opportunities, not just highlight problems.	Developing the right institutional framework for applicationEnsuring that causal relationships, where inferred, are tested and validated.
As a modelling tool e.g. to track demographic change (DFID).	Negotiation for priority actions/enhanced bargaining power of developing countriesEmpowerment of the poor (e.g. Friends of the Earth study in UK).	Incorporate changes over timeShould be demand-driven/client focused.
Inputs to vulnerability analysis (SEI, ADB, World Bank).	Enhancing understandingEvaluating possible causal relationshipsAssisting mitigationExpanding types/availability of vulnerability indicators.	A coordinated, country-driven process is needed, where institutional framework is in place Ensuring that data and causal relationships, where inferred, are tested, and validated.
Ex ante guide for policy analysis; Ex post analysis of resource allocation (World Bank).	Powerful communication tool/can add a new level of transparency to the debate on whether we are targeting the right areas/needs.	Enhance data qualityBuild local sustainable capacityImprove access to data.
Donor identification of projects (JBIC).	Improving selection of sector loan applications, e.g. financing rural infrastructure development Improved targeting of investments.	Must be used in combination with other criteria (e.g., economic rate of return), not just poverty.
Application to modelling, e.g., to track migration; governance; implementation of UNCCD (EC DG Dev).	Improved targeting of investments.	Capacity buildingInvolvement of stakeholders from the startEnsuring access to data (e.g., through policy development).
Coordination of government activities (Senegal - Finance Ministry and CSE).	Use of maps as a tool for lobbying, e.g. in parliament about progress towards MDGs.	Research in the representation of reality and cultural/social perceptions to promote democratic use of poverty mapsImprove methodology especially in comparing poverty/environment information.
As a tool for analysing dependencies in natural resources/ livelihoods relations, and assessing the priorities of the poor (e.g., through participatory exercises) (WWF).	Ecoregional planning, e.g. opportunities to alleviate poverty through biodiversity conservation and use.	Household surveys should be extended to include natural resource usePPAs to include more explicitly environmental priorities of the poorData can be disaggregated e.g. to be gender-specific.
Monitoring impact of foreign investment e.g., within context of PRSP.	E.g., development and analysis of priority sector maps, poverty maps, poverty-investment maps.	Needs high acceptance and cooperation among partnersAppropriate embedding of poverty mapping unit with sustained funding.

Session 4: Widening the Impact of Poverty Maps

Presentations were made on ongoing or planned work integrating poverty maps to applications in vulnerability assessment, planning of development projects, monitoring performance towards goals, and coordinating government activities. See presentation files

Session 5: What Needs to be done to Expand Poverty Map Application?

Most participants indicated that the presentations had been very interesting and informative. However they felt unable to provide many substantive inputs on how to further develop or expand the use and impact of poverty mapping, and that these inputs should come from the developing countries themselves. Various representatives of development agencies in turn expressed support for country-level studies to further explore application and expansion of poverty maps to especially poverty environment work. Some recommendations were, however, given including;

There is a need to align global and local perspectives of poverty and mapping can be a useful tool to communicate this.
Poverty map applications, especially in environment, need to be further explored. This includes identifying, testing, and validating poverty/environment causal relationships through the use of poverty maps, qualitative assessments, and other tools.
Poverty maps need careful application so as not to contribute to information overload or misinformation; awareness on poverty map limitations is vital. Its use must not be prescribed but rather be demand-driven.
Local participation in poverty mapping development and usage was stressed.
Data needs were highlighted throughout the workshop, including basic concerns of data availability and access, limited analytical capacity, and restricted dissemination.
There is a need for greater outreach and more participation from developing countries in future workshops. The developing country users/developers can present a much more convincing case for the extended application of poverty maps.
Further research is needed to help determine what makes a map interesting to decision makers and how decision makers make decisions.
Social and economic values of environmental goods and services can be included in analyses and communication.
Poverty and environment information collection and analysis should be aligned with other spatial information collection and processing activities in order to improve cost effectiveness. Poverty map development may be greatly facilitated through e.g., the revision of census/survey questions, including georeferencing parameters in surveys, etc
There is a need to synthesise what has been done and make it more widely available, build on existing work, and allow impacts to speak for themselves.
A central online repository for data would be useful (expand www.povertymap.net)

Conclusions

The participants agreed that poverty mapping had proved to be useful in several applications, including targeting of development assistance, analysing linkages, coordinating development, and communicating information.
However, they also concluded that poverty mapping is just one of a suite of tools available for poverty-environment related work, and that limitations include the difficulty of sustaining information systems, due to their relatively high cost and investment of resources; and the risk of misinformation.
In particular the group advocated the application of poverty-environment mapping for raising awareness on the linkages between poverty and environment within development agencies; integrating environment into PRSPs; analysing patterns and impacts of demographic change; assisting with planning and implementation in the health, education and agricultural sectors (including as an input to vulnerability assessments); and assisting decision makers in setting priorities and allocating investments.
In order to achieve these, the following needs should be addressed: strengthen capacities (including in poverty-environment data collection and analysis and information dissemination), increase awareness, ensure validation of data, improve access to and quality of data, and streamline with other initiatives.