The Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC) Executive Director has called for disaggregated data to plan for the poor better in the government poverty eradication strategies.
She was discussing the values of poverty eradication during an E-conference by the UBOS on the Role of quality statistics on August 27th, 2020. She said in 2010, government shifted from poverty to development and structural transformation in its National Development Plans (NDPs).What is interesting is that poverty reduction has remained top on the development agenda. She said EPRC has been carrying out poverty analyses with indicators like wellbeing, welfare and development. She stressed we should be concerned about poverty because when individuals are poor with no food, medical care etc, it impacts on the Human capital development which in turn affects the economy at the end of the day. We need to know where the poor are located, who they are and the nature of poverty whether it is chronic state or some are occasionally in and out poverty.
Ssewanyana argued that since the 90s, Uganda has been measuring poverty which is important to determine how much fiscal transfers go to local governments. She argued that for instance Social Assistance Grant for the Elderly (SAGE) program which universally targets the elderly yet they are not homogenous. Some elderly people are not necessarily poor. She added that poverty measurement indicators are used by the development partners in terms of their programming and it is good they value locally generated data to plan. They help us to monitor progress over time and change course to ensure you are on the right path. mind much about said ignoring poverty measurement would be costly since the people are likely to fall sick, have no food impacting on the human capital development which in turn affects the entire economy. We need to measure poverty to know where we stand, why, the nature of poverty.
She said the quality and frequency of data from UBOS had greatly improved over time through there is need.