How Accurate Is a Poverty Map Based on Remote Sensing Data? : An Application to Malawi
This paper assesses the reliability of poverty maps derived from remote-sensing data. Employing data for Malawi, it first obtains small area estimates of poverty by combining the Malawi household expenditure survey from 2010/11 with unit record pop...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Language: | English English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2022
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099419209132236954/IDU0fcecbbc004dd3041cc088360d1c57c5ffe04 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/38009 |
| Summary: | This paper assesses the reliability
of poverty maps derived from remote-sensing data. Employing
data for Malawi, it first obtains small area estimates of
poverty by combining the Malawi household expenditure survey
from 2010/11 with unit record population census data from
2008. It then ignores the population census data and obtains
a second poverty map for Malawi by combining the survey data
with predictors of poverty derived from remote sensing data.
This allows for a clean comparison between the two poverty
maps. The findings are encouraging - although that
assessment depends somewhat on the evaluation criteria
employed. The two approaches reveal the same patterns in the
geography of poverty. However, there are instances where the
two approaches obtain markedly different estimates of
poverty. Poverty maps obtained using remote sensing data may
do well when the decision maker is interested in comparisons
of poverty between assemblies of areas, yet may be less
reliable when the focus is on estimates for specific small areas. |
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