Introduction

This study documents the construction of a poverty map based on data from the fourth round Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS 4) and the Housing and Population Census 2000. Based on a recently developed methodology, it permits the calculation of poverty indicators at very low levels of aggregation, using the detailed information found in the survey and the exhaustive coverage of the census. Results at district level as well as at the town and area council level are presented and analyzed.

In the past decade poverty profiles have been developed into useful tools for characterizing, assessing and monitoring poverty. Based on information collected in household surveys, including detailed information on expenditures and incomes, these profiles present the characteristics of the population according to their level of — monetary and non-monetary — standard of living, help assess the poverty-reducing effects of some policies and compare poverty levels between regions, groups and over time.

While these household-based studies have greatly improved our knowledge of the welfare level of households in general and of the poorer ones in particular, the approach suffers from a number of constraints. In particular, policy-makers and planners have need of finely disaggregated information in order to implement their anti-poverty schemes. Typically they need information for small geographic units such as city neighbourhoods, towns or villages.