Geographical Targeting for Poverty Alleviation: An Introduction to the Special Issue

In the face of rising public deficits and shrinking public resources, geographical targeting may be a viable way to allocate resources for poverty alleviation in developing countries. Efficiency can be increased and leakage to the nonpoor reduced substantially by targeting increasingly smaller areas. This article, and more generally the symposium on geographical targeting for poverty alleviation, proposes several techniques for augmenting data to produce more detailed poverty maps. It focuses on practical considerations in the design of geographically targeted poverty alleviation programs. In particular, it assesses the advantages and disadvantages of geographical targeting and describes how geographic information systems can be applied to improve poverty mapping.