Using PICES Data to Visualize District Level Multidimensional Poverty in Zimbabwe

Overview

Prior research suggests that poverty in Zimbabwe has increased since the period of crisis began at the turn of the millennium. According to the latest World Bank estimates, almost 49% of the population of Zimbabwe were in extreme poverty in 2020. Our stakeholders seek solutions to the economic situation. They would like more granular information presented in creative ways that allow the user to glean the multidimensional and temporal aspects of poverty in Zimbabwe. The recent availability of household surveys for public use has opened the possibility of using the data to inform evidence-based policy. This project uses data from the Poverty, Income, Consumption, Expenditure Survey (PICES) to provide granular information on poverty in Zimbabwe. We created multidimensional poverty indices (MPI) at the district and province level and decomposed them into components that focus on education, health, employment, housing conditions, living conditions, assets, agricultural assets, and access to services. We provide interactive tools that allow the user to visualize and study each component and understand their contribution to the MPI. We constructed these measures for two waves of data in 2011 and 2017 to show the changes in poverty over time and across regions in Zimbabwe. The composition and decomposition of MPI in this project provide policy implications for informing evidence-based policy and interventions for poverty reduction.