Introduction on Measuring Poverty at Local Level Using Small Area Estimation Methods

All over the world, fighting against poverty is assuming a more and more central role and recent radical economic and social transformations have caused a renewed interest in this field. Poverty is a complex concept. As a consequence, the focus should not be only on monetary poverty, but also on the larger concept of well-being, which preliminarily includes the definition and measure of the following aspects: capability of income production, being involved in a satisfying job, being in good health, living in an adequate house, achieving a proper level of education, having good social relations, and so on. These characteristics require poverty to be defined in a multidimensional setting. Given that, the reduction of the risk of becoming poor can be achieved only through a very wide range of policy actions and tools: from the mere monetary transfer to a varied supply of social services. Local governments play a fundamental role in implementing actions to provide help to vulnerable people. By means of providing social services and transfers in kind, Local Governmental Agencies (LGAs) are able to adapt their service supply to multiple and different needs. The governance of local areas must be concerted and shared creating a virtuous pool of governmental and not governmental actors and agencies. So the policy makers need to know the situation as it is and the impact of their actions at this local level and also stakeholders and citizens are interested in better understanding the effect of policies on their own territory.