Helpdesk

Question
Poverty and vulnerability in DRC: Identify and summarise key national and localised information in Democratic Republic of Congo, on who are the extreme poor and vulnerable, what the causes of poverty are, and how people move in and out of poverty. Include an overview of how poverty is defined, key indicators used and quality of data.

Helpdesk response
Key findings: Analysing data on the DRC is extremely difficult. Robust, geographically disaggregated data on poverty in DRC is scarce, with most analysis focused on Kinshasa or DRC as a whole. A lot of data has not been processed and data from national and different multilateral agencies can contradict each other. There is a need for greater capacity to identify and understand the nature of poverty across the DRC, based on robust methodologies.

In light of this lack of data, this report summarises what information it was possible to obtain in the limited timeframe. This includes an overview of the different definitions of poverty followed by assessments of poverty and vulnerability in DRC at a national level, and localised data where available. Some studies include analysis of the causes of poverty and assessments of the type and quality of data.

Full response: http://www.gsdrc.org/docs/open/HDQ809.pdf