Data collection and analysis to accelerate ultra-poverty reduction in rural Africa Chris Barrett, Cornell University July 7, 2016 4th International Conference on Computational Sustainability Cornell University

The ultra-poor are African The big poverty reduction challenge is the persistence of concentrated ultra-poverty … in Africa, where it almost doubled in a generation. Data source: World Bank PovcalNet Source: World Bank, PovCalNet In 1981 Africa was home to 12% of the world’s ultra-poor … 30 yrs later: 83%

The Economics of Poverty Traps Poverty trap = “self-reinforcing mechanism which causes poverty to persist” (Azariadis & Stachurski, HEG 2005). Reinforcing feedback: Violence and low productivity cause poverty. Poverty causes hunger and natural resource degradation. Hunger and degraded natural resources also cause low productivity and violence. Hence vicious cycle of poverty traps, hunger, violence and natural resources degradation.

The crucial role of data & analysis The range of possible poverty trap mechanisms is large. Context matters enormously. Spatiotemporally relevant data thus key to attacking rural ultra-poverty. 3 major functions: Diagnostics: What 1st/2nd/3rd limiting for a given people, place and time? Targeting: Who? What? Where? When? Design/evaluation of interventions

Diagnostics Phone-based crowd-sourcing rangeland conditions Supplement remote sensing data to add precision Identifying soil limitations NIRS (handheld and eqpt-mounted) can improve soil mapping and real-time plot mgmt (precision ag, etc.) Early warning systems and high frequency diagnostics Remote sensing of crop yields (Ermon & Burke), monitor hh livelihoods/child health (Headey & Barrett) Ushahidi and violence Esoko and markets

Targeting Choosing the right tool, place and people: Targeting maps (Lang et al. WD 2013) Improving on PMT (McBride) Food assistance and MIFIRA Fertilizer VCR maps (Woodard et al.)

Interventions Based on diagnostics and targeting, introduce and evaluate interventions. Ethiopian Commodities Exchange Index-based livestock insurance Faster, cheaper food assistance

“Most of the people in the world are poor, so if we knew the economics of being poor we would know much of the economics that really matters.” - Theodore W. Schultz Opening sentences of 1979 Nobel Prize in Economics lecture Advancing the economics of poverty reduction requires improved data collection and analysis.