Targeting Grenada’s most deprived population: a multidimensional living conditions assessment

Summary

Public policies concerned with the reduction of poverty increasingly
rely on identifying the most deprived households with the use of
statistical targeting techniques. Targeting methods aim to measure
deprivation as accurately as possible and use this measurement to
identify those who need help the most. This paper proposes an improved
method for the construction of a household multidimensional index of
deprivation for targeting purposes and applies it in the Grenadian
context. The proposed Grenadian living conditions index
prioritizes quality of life and living conditions, rather than merely
income or expenditure and provides a framework for the measurement of
the joint depth of multidimensional deprivation. Furthermore, the
proposed instrument allows for comparisons across households and over
time and can be applied for different purposes and policies. Empirical
results shed light on the advantages of using our proposed method for
poverty reduction, compared to Principal Component Analysis and Fuzzy
Set techniques.