Policy Research Working Paper 10736, titled "Assessing the Extent of Monetary Poverty in the Syrian Arab Republic after a Decade of Conflict," by Silvia Redaelli, Michelle Infanzon, and Laura Liliana Moreno Herrera, addresses the scarcity of data on welfare in Syria over the past ten years. The paper aims to:
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Update Pre-Conflict Poverty Estimates: Utilizing grouped data from the 2009 Household Income and Expenditure Survey, it recalculates the poverty baseline.
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Review Existing Post-Conflict Poverty Projections: Examining both nowcasting methodologies and estimates derived from the Humanitarian Needs Assessment Program (HNAP) surveys conducted in 2021 and 2022.
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Estimate Poverty Using HNAP 2022 Data: Incorporating improvements to the expenditure module of the survey, it calculates monetary poverty estimates based on the 2022 HNAP Demographic and Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene survey.
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Discuss Challenges in Nowcasting: Highlighting difficulties in measuring "growth" and population estimates, and conducting a sensitivity analysis on distribution-neutral poverty projections.
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Propose a Methodology for Triangulating Projections: Suggesting the use of 2022 HNAP-based poverty estimates to anchor the most recent projections and interpolating poverty trends over the period using the growth rate of per capita GDP, adjusted by the Consumer Price Index, with a pass-through rate of 0.7%.
This paper contributes to the broader effort of the Poverty and Equity Global Practice at the World Bank to provide open access to research and enhance development policy discussions. It is part of a series aimed at addressing data scarcity and improving poverty measurement in conflict-affected regions like Syria.
