Monitoring Poverty and Vulnerability in an Urban African Setting: Lessons from the Ouagadougou Demographic Surveillance System

Jean-François Kobiané, Université de Ouagadougou
Abdramane Soura, Institut Superieur des Sciences de la Population (ISSP) and Université de Ouagadougou
Idrissa Ouili, Institut Superieur des Sciences de la Population (ISSP) and Université de Ouagadougou

The “Institut Supérieur des Sciences de la Population” (ISSP) from the University of Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) and its partners have established since 2001 a Demographic Surveillance System. Information on assets ownership is updated annually. Using a Principal Component Analysis, a quantitative scale of wealth proxy based on assets was constructed. Then a relative approach to poverty was adopted using the quintiles. An important proportion of households have been changing quintiles over time. In addition, most of the analysis which has been already done on the link between the wealth index and social outcomes like education and health are closed to what could be expected. In ongoing analysis, we are assessing how these changes in wealth quintiles affect educational and health outcomes. We are also planning to improve the method of analysis: longitudinal data have a two-level hierarchical structure, with repeated measurements (level 1) nested within individuals (level 2), and may therefore be analyzed using multilevel models.