Tropentag, September 16 - 18, 2015 in Berlin, Germany "Management of land use systems for enhanced food security – conflicts, controversies and resolutions"

New Dimensions of Multidimensional Poverty and its Relation to Shocks: Evidence from African Indigenous Vegetable Producers in Kenya

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Albrecht-Daniel Thaer Insitute for Agriculture and Horticulture, Division of Horticultural Economics, Germany

Abstract

The global community is confronted with not only existing challenges of poverty and food insecurity but also emerging ones of climate change and loss of biodiversity. It is clear that the consequence of these challenges has lasting and severe effects on the livelihoods of households especially in developing countries and their economies. It has been shown that shocks such as drought, floods, changes in rainfall levels and variability, and the consequent effects of crop failure are identified as major determinants of poverty dynamics and have a significant effect on the welfare of households in developing countries. Yet, it remains an open question as to how these shocks affect different welfare indicators.

There is emerging literature about using multidimensional indicators to measure poverty. Consequently, research on poverty has reached consensus that measurements of poverty has to reflect its multidimensional character by including education, health, assets and other indicators into the conventional consumption poverty measure. Using such multidimensional poverty assessment captures both short and long-term components of poverty. Accordingly, multidimensional poverty measures, composed of different variables, are increasingly being used as reasonable methods of poverty assessment and its application is being tested in different contexts, such as to assess the link between poverty and disability and child poverty and conflict. However, there is little evidence of using multidimensional poverty measures to assess the link between poverty and shocks. Therefore, this study seeks to use new dimensions of welfare indicators to calculate multidimensional poverty using HORTINLEA household survey among rural and peri-urban African Indigenous Vegetable producers in Kenya. We then establish the link between different dimensions of multidimensional poverty to incidence of various shocks. This provides new insights to policy and development interventions as to which dimensions of poverty are vulnerable to a specific type of shock incidence so that informed actions could be undertaken when a specific type of shock occurs.

Keywords: African indigenous vegetables, Kenya, multidimensional poverty, shocks

Contact Address: Sindu Kebede, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Albrecht-Daniel Thaer Insitute for Agriculture and Horticulture, Division of Horticultural Economics, Invalidenstr. 42, Berlin, Germany, e-mail: kebedeswagrar.hu-berlin.de