District-based poverty profiling (Ghana)

Mapping and pro-poor planning as a monitoring and evaluation tool

The project that is the subject of this paper used an alternative, participatory form of poverty profiling and mapping pivoted on a series of guided dialogues, involving the poor themselves and the agencies that supply services to them.

This approach, based on a participatory dialogue, brings together quantitative data on poverty and the poor, as well as qualitative information on how the poor perceive themselves, what they consider as the causes of their poverty, and the coping mechanisms they use in organising the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services.

The result of this participatory process is that both the poor and change agents interested in helping to reduce poverty gain a better understanding of the forces that keep people poor, the minimum threshold of support that could get the poor out of the poverty trap, and the technical and human resources needed to initiate poverty reduction support measures. Acting in collaboration with the Ghanaian Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and the Environment (MLGRDE), the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) and the Social Investment Fund (SIF), the German Technical Cooperation Agency (GTZ) embarked on a nationwide project to compile poverty profiles and maps for all the country’s 110 districts. The aim was to help make the pro-poor targeting of development initiatives more effective. The participatory methodology for poverty profiling and mapping was first piloted in two districts and later implemented in 16 districts. In 2004, assistance was given to the remaining 94 District Assemblies in preparing poverty profiles, maps and pro-poor programmes.

Full document to download on Pelican Initiative platform (30 pages 466 Ko) www.dgroups.org/groups/pelican/docs/Ghana_Draft_EN.pdf

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