World Bank2024-10-102024-10-102024-10-10https://hdl.handle.net/10986/42237Tonga’s economic growth, historically weak due to structural factors facing many Pacific Island countries, has been particularly sluggish in recent years due to several large shocks. Tropical cyclones in 2018 and 2020, border restrictions and surging inflation due to the COVID-19 outbreak, and the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai (HT-HH) volcanic eruption all have battered the population and have potentially reversed previous welfare gains. This World Bank Poverty and Equity Assessment (PEA) report aims to fill critical knowledge gaps regarding the extent, nature, and drivers of poverty and inequality in Tonga. The report extensively utilizes the 2021 Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) in Tonga and the official monetary poverty estimate from the survey. The 2021 HIES is the first survey containing significant welfare information that was entirely fielded after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and can more fully illustrate some of the pandemic’s impacts. To estimate the change in monetary poverty, the report utilizes the 2015/16 HIES to impute the monetary poverty estimate in that year given that the government did not report an official monetary poverty estimate from the survey. In addition to identifying poverty and inequality patterns, this report highlights several thematic topics to which information from the HIES can contribute and inform the ongoing policy dialog. These topics include vulnerability of the population to shocks, human capital development, and social protection systems.en-USCC BY-NC 3.0 IGOPOVERTYFOOD SECURITYSOCIAL PROTECTION AND GROWTHECONOMIC GROWTHNO POVERTYSDG 1ZERO HUNGERSDG 2DECENT WORK AND ECONOMIC GROWTHSDG 8ReportWorld Bank10.1596/42237