Identifying Poverty Groups in Honduras: Some Preliminary Estimates and Scenarios

摘要

The report provides information on the Honduran poor for use in designing programs to alleviate the negative effects of structural adjustment. It measures and locates major geographic pockets of poverty and provides rough estimations of the number of people facing extreme poverty. Poverty is measured in terms of the ability to purchase a nutritionally adequate food basket. The report then examines the impact on poverty estimates of three different scenarios: stricter poverty criteria (to permit identification of those facing very extreme poverty), a 25% increase in agricultural wages, and an updated consumer price index. Major findings are that slightly over half of Hondurans face extreme poverty -- 74.4% in rural areas, 15.5% in Tegucigalpa, 9.3% in San Pedro Sula, and 16.6% in other urban areas. The report concludes that resources need to be focused on rural development activities, with some highly targeted urban assistance programs. An unbiased agricultural market information system would allow rural households to respond to emerging opportunities and promote increased domestic food supplies for both rural and urban areas.