Poverty mapping in Bhutan - Small area estimations: Gewog and town level results(v1)
Description
The availability of poverty statistics at local levels of administration is critical for effective poverty reduction policy planning. The Bhutan Living Standards Survey (BLSS), a national representative survey, is a primary source of poverty data in Bhutan. Based on the BLSS sampling methodology, poverty rates can be estimated at the national and Dzongkhags (district) levels. This report presents Gewog/ town-level poverty maps for Bhutan using the small area estimation (SAE) technique and the most recent BLSS(2022) and the 2017 Population and Housing Census of Bhutan (PHCB). On the one hand, BLSS collects detailed information on household expenditures required for estimating monetary poverty but limits poverty estimation below the district level. On the other hand, the PHCB collects data from every household but does not include household expenditures as this information is generally too costly and time-consuming to include. The SAE technique combines two sources of data and produces monetary poverty indicators at the Gewog/town level. This report presents the SAE results as well as poverty estimates and maps at the Gewog/ town level.