Children of a lesser god? Challenges in integrating sectoral concerns in national household surveys

Rural areas are characterized by multiple economic activities including crop agriculture, livestock, forestry, and fisheries. Reducing rural poverty requires multisectoral strategies that address this variety of livelihoods and are based on sound poverty data. National household surveys are the traditional source of poverty data in rural areas. However, they are usually not representative of population groups that engage in primary activities other than crop agriculture. The consequence is a lack of poverty data for specific rural sectors such as livestock, forestry and fisheries. In this seminar, Alberto Zezza will provide an overview of recent developments, emerging opportunities and outstanding challenges for the integration of specific modules on different rural sub-sectors (forestry, fisheries, and livestock) into Living Standard Measurement Study (LSMS) and similar multitopic household surveys. His presentation will include an overview of the tools that have been developed over the past few years, the countries in which they have been implemented, and the challenges that remain for the sustainable scale-up of their adoption by national statistical system.

SPEAKER:

Alberto Zezza is a Senior Economist in the Development Data Group of the World Bank. He is part of the Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) team, based in the Rome Center for Development Data (C4D2). His current research interests are in the area of survey methods applied to questions around agricultural productivity,  rural development, and food consumption. Prior to joining the World Bank, he was with the Agricultural Development Economics Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO). He holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural and Development Economics from the University of Rome, and a M.A. in Development Economics from the University of Sussex.