Profiling Multidimensional Poverty and Inequality in Kenya and Zambia at Sub-National Levels

Abstract

Persistent spatial disparities in poverty remain prevalent in most developing and transition economies. However, spatial analyses of poverty in poor countries are generally limited to rural-urban or provincial breakdowns. Despite the fact that poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon, existing subnational level poverty analyses mainly use money-metric indicators of individual welfare. In this study, we use census data to estimate multidimensional poverty at lower levels of geographic disaggregation in Zambia and Kenya. The study results show that, in general, the extent of multidimensional poverty is significantly higher in rural areas than in urban areas in both countries. However, the results also indicate that, although deprivation levels in access to basic services are relatively lower in large urban centres such as Nairobi and Mombasa in Kenya, and Lusaka, Livingstone and Ndola in Zambia, these are areas where deprivation levels have increased significantly over time. This work is part of the ‘Governing Food Systems to Alleviate Poverty in Secondary Cities in Africa’ project and was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the UK Department for International Development