BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – The Barbados government says it is collaborating with the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to assess the level of poverty on the island.
“Barbados will be proceeding on a poverty assessment to have a clear understanding of the level of poverty in Barbados, to calculate the poverty line, and to calculate the number of households in poverty. You would appreciate that this poverty study is necessary for us to make proper decisions, as is the case for any decision-making. You need the relevant data to do so,” said Minister of People Empowerment and Elder Affairs Kirk Humphrey.
“The reality is, as well, that COVID would have made any poverty statistics that we had before COVID pretty much irrelevant. And therefore, in the best circumstances, you should probably have updated … poverty data every two years,” he added.
Humphrey said that the last poverty study undertaken on the island was in 2016, and it showed Barbados as having 17.2 percent of households in poverty, while the previous study, in 2010, showed a 15 percent level. In 1997, the island had a poverty rate of 8.7 percent.
Humphrey said that the macro-social assessment, participatory poverty assessment, and Survey of Living Conditions/Household Budget Survey will be undertaken at a cost of BDS.13 million (One BDS=US$0.50 cents) with support from the CDB.
“Most people know of a poverty study. This is where you get your poverty line. This is where you get your vulnerability line. This is where you can establish the amount of money necessary to have a decent life, above poverty in a country, and this is what most people are aware of.”
He said the IDB had already provided BDS$270,000 for the survey instrument design but that the CDB would be carrying most of the costs. He said the CDB would also bring on board consultants to help the government execute the Enhanced Country Poverty Assessment and ensure capacity building of agencies involved in the poverty assessment.
“The next few steps are that for the next two months until the end of the financial year, we will be designing the instrument, hiring the consultants, with the Caribbean Development Bank, and so on. Then, starting on April 1, the intention is to begin the data collection. And that process lasts six months because you want to get as much information as possible.
“The IDB study normally lasts a year – the data collection component. The CDB component is six months, which allows us to be in a position to make serious determinations about ‘how do we treat poverty?’, ‘who is experiencing poverty?’ ‘Where is that poverty?’, ‘Do we need to make new adjustments to the Government’s social programming?’ Because you really cannot make decisions if you do not have the data,” Humphrey said.
and then  and the Inter-American Development Bank){kind=link}