Development of the provincial poverty methodology and future work/current developments being undertaken

The development of the provincial poverty methodology was a long and deliberate process that started in 1996 by way of a collaborative project of the FNRI and the NSCB funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) under the module “Development of Provincial Low-Cost Nutritionally Improved Menus”. This initiative was in response to the users’ clamor for more useful poverty statistics by way of finer geographic disaggregation to make them more useful in planning at the subnational level. The project developed provincial menus that were used as bases in determining provincial food thresholds. Consultation meetings were initially held between the NSCB and the FNRI and this was followed by workshops for the provincial nutritionists who developed the menus. The developed menus went through several validations before they were finalized. In recognition of the importance of poverty statistics, the menus and the proposed methodology were presented in several users’ fora conducted in 2000 in different regions of the country. They were also discussed and approved by the NSCB-created InterAgency Committee on Labor, Income and Poverty Statistics on 4 January 2002 and February 1, 2002. The provincial poverty methodology was finally approved by the NSCB Executive Board on February 22, 2002. Using the approved methodology, the resulting estimates were presented during a joint meeting of the TWGIPS and the IACLIPS as well as to the Board. Based on these meetings, the NSCB Technical Staff was instructed by the Board to re-evaluate the soundness of the methodology through various computational exercises, results of which were also presented in several consultative meetings, especially with the NEDA, including a forum jointly sponsored by the National Anti-Poverty Commission and the NSCB on January 10, 2003 and a joint meeting of the IACLIPS and the TWGPIMS on January 13, 2003. The Board approved a revised methodology on January 15, 2003. The new methodology utilizes region-based menus rather than provincial-based menus which were previously approved in 2002. 

A two-day workshop of users and producers of poverty statistics was also held on June 18-19, 2003 at Ciudad Christia in San Mateo, Rizal. This was organized by NEDA and sponsored by NAPC. The workshop mainly aimed to assess the needs of the users of poverty statistics and to reach recommendations towards improving the official poverty estimation methodology.