Transcript Document

MONITORING MDG 1:
CONCEPTUAL AND
IMPLEMENTATION ISSUES
Udesh Pillay
Purpose of exercise
• To reflect on conceptual and practical
measurement issues in respect of both parts
of MDG 1 – poverty and hunger
• To identify limitations of current information
sources and tools
• To suggest practical means of addressing
challenges in measuring and monitoring
• Premise: not merely question of how to
‘populate’ given indicators, but suggest other
means of monitoring MDG 1
GOAL 1: ERADICATE EXTREME
POVERTY AND HUNGER
• Target 1: Halve between 1990 and 2015 the
proportion of people whose income is less than
US$1 per day
• Target 2: Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the
proportion of people who suffer from hunger
Part I: Poverty
• ‘Official’ MDG indicators from UN:
1. Proportion of the population below US$ 1 per day
2. Poverty gap ratio
3. Share of poorest quintile in national consumption
• Overview of presentation
• Information base and lack of consensus
• Limitations re money metric poverty measures
• Social wage
Information base and lack of
consensus
• Income poverty trends contested – why?
• Our best information sources unreliable? (i.e.
Income & Expenditure surveys)
• Fail to capture better-off part of population
• Doesn’t correspond to national accounts
• Costly to administer thus infrequent
• paucity of data points on which to rely for trend
analysis
• Utility of a poverty line in question
Limitations of money metric
poverty measures
An example (HSRC 2005):
Province
Western Cape
Eastern Cape
Northern Cape
Free State
KZN
North West
Gauteng
Mpumalanga
Limpopo
% of hungry HHs who are
'indigent'
(HH income < R1100 pm)
28%
8%
11%
11%
14%
18%
19%
12%
6%
Limitations of money metric
poverty measures
• If poverty line reflects absolute deprivation, why
is relationship between income poverty and
hunger so weak?
• Need one poverty line or 9 (1 for each
province)?
• Treasury’s proposed solution: create a
band/range
• Problem: how does this help us measure trends,
e.g. progress inre MDG1?
Social wage
• Disagreement over what constitutes ‘social
wage’ and how to measure
• What is it? Quasi-income (frees up income for
other uses, e.g. ‘free water’) versus any inkind benefit of inherent value (e.g. education)?
• How to measure it? Cost apportionment (fiscal
incidence) method versus more nuanced
(behavioural) approach?
• Suggestion: why not facilitate regular,
transparent estimates of social wage by
amending GHS questionnaire?
Part II: Hunger
•
‘Official’ MDG indicators from UN:
1. The prevalence of underweight children under five
years of age
2. Percentage of the population below the minimum
level of dietary energy consumption
• Overview of presentation
– Measurement approaches
– Advantages and disadvantages
Three main methods for
measuring hunger in SA
• Anthropometric – allows reporting vis-à-vis
‘official’ MDG indicators
• Minimum level of dietary energy consumption –
analyse food consumption relative to dietary
norms
• Proxy and subjective measures – e.g. dietary
diversity scales, hunger scales, etc.
Anthropometric measurements of
children
Main examples in South Africa
• SAVACG study (South African Vitamin A
Consultative Group), 1995
• NFCS (National Food Consumption Survey), 1999
and 2005
• SADHS (South African Demographic & Health
Survey), 1998 and 2003
• National and provincial Living Standards and
Income Dynamics Studies
Anthropometric - summary
• Offer precise way of measuring MDG indicator,
however:
• Few national surveys
• Fewer still that are strictly comparable (SAVAGC
and NFCS use different methods, different defs of
‘child’, etc.)
• Timeous accessibility of data a problem (results of
2005 NFCS have not yet been released)
• In short, difficult to track progress inre first
indicator MDG1 hunger reduction target
Minimum level of dietary
energy consumption
• Aim: fix a ‘food poverty line’, i.e. minimum
expenditure on food for accessing minimum calories
• Supported by income & expenditure-type surveys
• In RSA, Stats SA conducts i & e survey every 5 years
and makes data available to public at large
• Surveys usually very large and regular relative to food
consumption surveys
Proxy and subjective measures
Three main types:
• Household dietary diversity measures
• Subjective hunger questions
• ‘Hunger scales’
Household dietary diversity
(HDD) measures
• Advantages:
• Closely linked to diet quality
• Easy and cheap to measure
• In principle, can easily be derived from income &
expenditure surveys
• Disadvantage: comparability over space an
open question
Subjective hunger questions
• Advantages:
• Very simple
• Can be (and are) included in other standard vehicles,
e.g. October/General HH Survey:
Subj hunger questions results
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
'No' (OHS)
'Never'/'seldom' (GHS)
'Yes' (OHS)
'Stms'/'often'/'always' (GHS)
0%
1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
Proxy and subjective measures –
summary
• Inter-period comparability unclear
• International comparability doubtful
• Auspicious for monitoring hunger regularly (see
previous figure)
• Can easily be used to help diagnose causes of
hunger and possible interventions
Overall conclusions
• The most technically appropriate means of
measuring indicators are not easy or available:
• Periodicity of surveys
• Slow release of results, esp. is not Stats SA surveys
• Technical controversies mean no consensus on core
questions of trends
• Recommendations:
• Make more use of regular Stats SA survey vehicles
• Make more use of unsophisticated proxy measures
• Sacrifice some technical ‘perfection’ in favour of regularity,
transparency, ease of use, and applicability to real day-today decision-making