Uganda: A new set of utility consistent poverty lines

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte.Abstract: Uganda has seen impressive economic growth and substantial poverty reductions over the past few decades. Today, official headcount poverty stands at about 20 per cent. However, recent research relying on non-monetary wealth indicators challenges official poverty statistics and suggests that headcount poverty is about 60 per cent higher. We argue that an outdated poverty line that does not take into consideration the spatial variation of diets in Uganda could explain the divergence. In this paper, we document how we estimate a new set of utility consistent poverty lines for Uganda using the Uganda National Household Survey of 2012-13 and use these updated poverty lines to calculate poverty. We find poverty levels to be higher and much more in line with what other studies suggest.

Farm Production Diversity: Is It Important for Dietary Diversity? Panel Data Evidence from Uganda

“…The fact that the mean was far smaller than the range depicted the dominance of the subsistence farming nature of our sample. The food consumption expenditure means of our study are quite comparable to literature [4,9,28].…”

“…This could be explained by a heavy dependence on staple foods in Uganda that were mostly cereals, roots and tubers (cassava, sweet potatoes, potatoes), and Matooke (cooking bananas) [9,17]. The relatively large FPD range could also depict large regional (within Uganda) differences in food species diversity across Uganda [9,28].…”

“…where crop species were numbering from 1 to K, and livestock species from 1 to J for household i. Using panel data supported by the World Bank [30], we measured Household Food Security (HFS) following the empirical work of Van Campenhout et al [28], which established utility consistent food poverty lines for specific regions in Uganda (Kampala (2336), Central (2099), Northern (1653), Eastern (1668), and Western (1990)). Moreover, empirical evidence asserts that food and dietary assessment that reflects region specific societal diets are more appropriate than aggregated assessment [10,12,16,22,31].…”

“…Household data covered education, income sources, consumption expenditure, and shocks, among others. There were sufficient data available on Uganda for the opportunity to study these linkages, including literature on food security assessment that account for region specific differences in food prices, as well as culture [10,28].…”

“…Sibhatu et al [16], showed evidence of association between market access and dietary diversity only. While food insecurity has been studied singly in Uganda without covering farm production diversity [10,28], Sekabira and Qaim [10] have also studied dietary diversity singly in Uganda, moreover using data from only two districts in Central Uganda. A more jointed effort has been done by Jones et al [12], who associated farm production diversity to household dietary diversity, although they used cross-sectional data and made no causal inferences.…”