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| Poverty Assessment Tools for Microenterprise Practitioners |
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www.povertytools.org IRIS is developing low-cost tools to assess poverty levels of clients in USAID-sponsored microenterprise programs.
Microenterprise development programs have improved the lives of millions of people around the world and have become an important focus of donor assistance. In order to ensure that these programs focus on working with the very poor, the US Congress passed the Microenterprise for Self-Reliance Act in 2000, mandating that half of all USAID microenterprise funds go to the very poor. (This level was defined as those living on less than $1 a day, or the bottom 50% of households living below their country's poverty line.)
Low-cost tools for poverty assessment will be essential to assess compliance with these mandated targets. Accordingly, the law also requires USAID to develop and certify at least two tools for assessing the poverty level of its microenterprise beneficiaries. IRIS’s AMAP Consortium was tasked with implementing this assignment.
IRIS implemented field tests to identify the best indicators of poverty in Bangladesh, Peru, Uganda, and Kazakhstan, and analyzed datasets from eight other countries (Guatemala, Vietnam, Ghana, Albania, India, Tajikistan, Tanzania, and Jamaica.) This data yielded sets of indicators for poverty assessment, that were then field-tested by microenterprise practitioners around the world to ensure that the tools are practical and user-friendly.
In October 2006, USAID extended the the Poverty Assessment Tools project until 2010. IRIS will now build off of the work conducted under the original project to develop poverty assessment tools for use by micro enterprise practitioners in up to ten additional countries and also to support a Help Desk to assist practitioners with the implementation of USAID-certified poverty assessment tools.
Please see the Poverty Tools project web site for project updates, upcoming events. |
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| Donor: U.S. Agency for International Development |
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| Dates: September 2003 - July 2010 |
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Project Director: Anthony Leegwater
E-mail: aleegwater@iris.umd.edu |
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| Last updated on: 4/17/2007 |
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Enumerators in Uganda plan household surveys.
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