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 resourcesfor poverty alleviation in developing countries. Efficiencycan be increased and leakage to the nonpoor reduced substantiallyby targeting increasingly smaller areas. This article, and moregenerally the symposium on geographical targeting for povertyalleviation, proposes several techniques for augmenting datato produce more detailed poverty maps. It focuses on practicalconsiderations in the design of geographically targeted povertyalleviation programs. In particular, it assesses the advantagesand disadvantages of geographical targeting and describes howgeographic information systems can be applied to improve povertymapping.