Technical Poverty Estimation Report

Abstract

A joint analysis of poverty and living standards was conducted by a technical team from the Ministry of Planning and Finance, Government of Myanmar, and the Poverty and Equity Global Practice of the World Bank. Poverty has previously been estimated using data from the Integrated Household Living Conditions Survey conducted in 2004/05 and 2009/10. Using this earlier data, poverty in Myanmar has been estimated using two different approaches. Poverty was initially measured by the Government of Myanmar and its development partners using data from IHLCA-I ("MNPED et al (2007)" methodology); this first measure of poverty based the poverty line and estimate in the living conditions of 2004/05. Poverty was estimated to be 32.1 percent in 2004/05 and was estimated to have dropped to 25.6 percent in 2009/10 (MNPED et al, 2007 and MNPED et al, 2011). A poverty estimate based on 2009/10 standards of living was put forward by the World Bank in 2014 ("World Bank (2014)" methodology), using data from the IHLCA-II. The World Bank estimated poverty to be 37.5 percent in 2009/10 (World Bank, 2014).