Publication: Mapping Poverty in Afghanistan: Technical Report
Date
2018-09
ISSN
Published
2018-09
Author(s)
World Bank Group
Abstract
Afghanistan has been in protracted
conflict for almost four decades, with direct implications
on progress towards development objectives. This context of
recurring episodes of violence and insecurity, economic and
political instability, and the consequent displacement of
populations within and outside the nation’s borders has
important implications on the landscape of data and evidence
available for the design, implementation, monitoring and
evaluation of interventions and programs, and their
timeliness and relevance. Afghans represent the world’s
largest and most protracted refugee population, with an
estimated 3.5 million people currently living abroad as
refugees for more than four decades. Given the large
disparities in poverty incidence and high levels of
inequality within Afghanistan, the knowledge of living
standards at more disaggregated geographical levels of
districts and nahias could help inform policy design and
improve decision making at a sub-province level. Therefore,
poverty mapping, which aims at estimating poverty incidence
at levels lower than the household survey, was applied in
Kabul and Herat provinces. This technical report describes
the methodology and data used to produce the Kabul and Herat
poverty maps and presents the resulting collection of
poverty maps, the first of its kind for Afghanistan. The
structure of the report is as follows. Section 2 outlines
the poverty mapping methodology, specifically the small area
estimation approach, applied in Afghanistan. Section 3
discusses the data sources and the various technical
challenges faced with the datasets. Section 4 discusses the
modeling phase, including model selection, model parameters,
and assumptions. Section 5 presents the poverty maps at a
district and nahia level, and section 6 concludes. The
Annexes contains supporting data and analysis.
Citation
“World Bank Group. 2018. Mapping Poverty in Afghanistan: Technical Report. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31719 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”