Poverty mapping in Uganda: an analysis using remotely sensed and other environmental data

Global poverty alleviation efforts have long produced mixed results, and attempts at identifying their various pitfalls have reinforced the need to establish accurate targeting of poverty reduction initiatives. The fundamental pre-requisite for this, therefore, is a clear understand of its spatial distribution. Correct identification of the poor also aids degree to which the extent and distribution of poverty in other regions and at different times can be predicted.

This paper presents a novel approach to poverty mapping, informed by the role of environmentally-determined factors typical to the persistence of poverty. The methodology presented combines household survey data with a number of environmental variables that are either direct measures of key climatic variables (temperature), descriptive variables of poverty-generating processes (agricultural systems) or proxies for constraints on health and wellbeing (disease-causing elements).

In applying this methodology to the situation in Uganda, the authors are able to draw out valuable lessons that can be taken into the future:

• external, independent data has at least as much descriptive power for poverty mapping as traditional approaches
• the analysis is not influenced by preconceptions of the causes of poverty - environmental variables provide a more objective view
• poverty maps constructed in this way are more likely to be put to practical use because the statistical underpinnings add credibility that ad hoc maps lack.