Multidimensional Spatial Poverty Comparisons in Cameroon
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Date
2010-06
Authors
Njong, Aloysius Mom
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
AERC
Abstract
The study investigates poverty comparisons across the various strata and urban/
rural areas in Cameroon. A composite poverty indicator is constructed using multiple
correspondence analysis by taking into account 33 non-monetary indicators that have
been identified as describing a real poverty situation. The composite poverty indicator
is combined with per capita consumption to estimate poverty measures showing that
income poverty affects 39.6% of households, whereas 80.6% of households are poor in
the non-monetary dimension. The incidence of multidimensional poverty is estimated to
be at 81.3%. Decomposition of the Chakravarty indexes fails to establish robust regional
poverty orderings and comparisons. By resorting to the stochastic dominance approach
we find that bi-dimensional poverty for urban areas is robustly lower than that for rural
areas. Between regions, there is clear evidence that bi-dimensional poverty in Yaounde/
Douala is less than other regions and that the Rural Savannah is the poorest region of
the country for a wide range of poverty lines and a broad class of poverty measures. The
discriminatory measures of variables reveal that water, sanitation, housing materials, levelof education and roads are the major indicators of non-monetary poverty in Cameroon. Policy should therefore, in addition to promoting income-generating activities, focus on these variables and target the rural areas as well as the northern regions to better alleviate poverty in Cameroon.
Description
HC 995 . Z9 P657 2010
Keywords
Poverty - cameroon - Econometric Models , Poor - Cameroon- Econometric Models , Income distribution - Cameroon - Econometric Models