General Description
In contrast to externally
determined indicators and external assessments of poverty levels, as in the Housing Index and the Means Test, PWR relies on criteria that communities themselves define. The criteria is used to conduct assessments of who within their communities they deem to be poor, and who relatively better off. PWR draws upon the experience of two decades of participatory appraisals conducted by academic researchers and development workers who have used it successfully to generate insights into the dynamics of poverty, and as a low cost method for collecting detailed community information. PWR lets communities define what constitutes poverty and relative well-being, and then lets communities classify households according to relative levels of poverty. PWR has been developed by the Small Enterprise Foundation (SEF) in South Africa as a more precise targeting tool for their context. Additionally, they feel that PWR, by allowing for greater interaction between clients and MFIs, and by demystifying the selection process, provides for greater client ownership of the program.
How is PWR Conducted?
a. Mapping Village
First, a community meeting is called. Members of the community are asked to draw a map of their village (or a section of their village if it is a large village) with all households, shops, and community centers carefully designated. This mapping is usually done on the ground so that it can easily be corrected. Once the mapping is completed and everyone agrees to it, it is transferred on paper for permanent record and names of households are recorded on cards.
b. Wealth Ranking
Community members are then divided into three to five reference groups. Each reference group meets separately and ranks the households into different piles or groups of differing levels of well-being that they define. The wealthiest pile is numbered one, while the poorest receive the highest number. Households in each of the groups are then scored according to a single formula: (100 / Number of groups) x Group number. For example, if there are in piles or groups into which households have been ranked, the poorest group would be numbered 6 and the best off numbered 1. Hence the poorest group would have a score of: (100/6) x 6 = 100; and the best off group would have a score of: (100/6) x 1 = 16.67. In fact, the poorest group will always have a score of 100.
c. Triangulation of Results
To ensure that biases are reduced, if not eliminated, scores of all reference groups are added and then averaged. For example, if any specific household receives a score of 100 in two reference groups and 75 in the third reference group it would receive an average score of 91.7.
d. Determining Cut-off Scores and Selecting Clients
Once all households are ranked, with the poorest household receiving the highest score, MFI workers select a cut-off point to determine MFI membership eligibility. The poorer the community the lower the cut-off score to ensure that more households will be eligible for membership. Those who are excluded can have discussions with MFI staff if they feel that they have been wrongly excluded.
Related Literature
Cost-effective Targeting: Two Tools to Identify the Poor (
)
Gibbons, D.S.; Simanowitz, A.; Nkuna, B. / Sembilan, Malaysia and Tzaneen, South Africa: CASHPOR / SEF 1999
Overcoming the Obstacles of Identifying the Poorest Families: using participatory wealth ranking (PWR), the CASHPOR House Index (CHI), and other measurements to identify and encourage the participation of the poorest families, especially the women of those families ()
Simanowitz, A.; Nkuna, B.; Kasim,
S.; Gailey, Robert / Microcredit Summit 2000
Targeting the Poor: A Comparison Between Visual and
Participatory Methods ()
Simanowitz, A / SEF (1999)