Survey of poverty, hunger, hope and happiness

The number of poor people going hungry and/
or food insecure is often estimated, using highly
aggregated income data, without ever determining whether the person/family actually experienced hunger (and how often, during the course of the year). Such lack of actual information and absence of estimate of self-classification as poor and food insecure, contributes to misplaced policy and programmes for poverty eradication and improvement of food security. While income is a highly significant predictor, subjective economic welfare is influenced by many other factors including health, education, assets, relative income in the area of residence and expectations about the future. Therefore, Pollibir considers that that self-rated poverty, hunger and food insecurity data are very relevant for appropriate pro-poor and

people-centred policy formulation. Integration of objective and subjective indicators will represent an additional dimension towards understanding the level and depth of poverty and food security and contribute to better policy formulation.

The sample size used for survey is 3 850 households, 550 in each of the seven administrative divisions of the country. Each administrative division is considered as stratum. From each stratum ten clusters (mauza/village) are selected at random. The community series of population census report 2001, was used as sampling frame. In each selected village, a list of household was prepared for selecting final sampling unit. The list of households in each selected cluster (mauza/village) are used as sampling frame at the second stage.

These surveys, based on sound statistical sampling design and methods, provides a better understanding of the rural people’s opinion on the issues affecting their lives, particularly on issues

related to hunger, hope and happiness. For more details about the survey results and findings, please contact: pollibir@gmail.com