Seminar on Measuring Nutrition, Health, and Poverty in Small Areas

On the 9th of January 2024, the Nepal Development Research Institute organized a seminar entitled “Measuring nutrition, health, and poverty in small areas – how low can you go?”. With more than 50 participants in person and about 15 people participating virtually from different countries, the program had a good representation from various government agencies, Development Organizations, Academia, and think tanks. 

The main highlight of the event was the keynote presentation on “Measuring nutrition, health and poverty in small areas: Bangladesh, Philippines, Cambodia, and Nepal – how low can you go?” by Prof. Stephen Haslett, Professor of Statistics, School of Mathematical and Computational Sciences, Massey University, Palmerston North & Wellington, New Zealand. He is also an affiliate at the Australian National University. Prof. Haslett is a globally renowned expert on Small Area Estimates (SAE) and has led many works related to SAE of poverty, health, and nutrition in various countries in the Asia Pacific, including Nepal. He led the first work on Small Area Estimates of Poverty and Malnutrition in Nepal in 2005-06, which was followed by another one in 2015. His presentation covered the concept of SAE, particularly, three unit-level small area estimation techniques—the ELL or World Bank method, empirical best prediction (EBP), and M-quantile (MQ) — which can estimate micro-level Foster, Greer, & Thorbecke (FGT) indicators: poverty incidence, gap and severity using both unit level survey and census data. However, they use different assumptions. He provided examples from his work in various countries showing how national surveys and Census data can be combined to produce reliable estimates in small areas such as the sub-district level in Nepal. Specifically, in Nepal, he shared the findings on the distribution of malnutrition at the sub-district level across the country, showing higher levels of stunting in the hills and mountains, and high levels of wasting in the Terai area.

The presentation concluded with a discussion on SAE models, the use of which depends on the data types, and the potential application in the case of Nepal. 

This was followed by a Q&A session, where questions were raised on the applicability of the method in different contexts, reflecting the challenges in implementing Small Area Estimates, as well as potential solutions. 

Following the Q&A session, Dr. Hem Raj Regmi, Deputy Chief Statistician, National Statistics Office (NSO) provided his remarks. Dr. Regmi mentioned that NSO has been mandated for data collection on behalf of the federal government. There is a wide range of data users for three tiers of data at the municipal level, provincial level, and national level. NSO has also used the SAE before, combining the Census data with data from various national surveys.  He added that due to the availability of the recent Census data, NDHS, and NLSS, now is the right time to implement fresh SAE. Availability of estimates at the lower level (municipality) will be very valuable for rational resource allocation for federal grants for poverty alleviation, etc. 

Dr. Sridhar Thapa, VAM Officer at the UN-World Food Program in Nepal, highlighted WFP's work on achieving food security of the populations in Nepal and said that having estimates at a lower level through SAE would be very useful in efficient planning and targeting of programmes. This will also be helpful to realize the ‘right to food’ for the populations. He emphasized the need for development agencies to cooperate with national institutions to meet the country's requirements. Dr. Thapa concluded that this is the right time for such collaboration in implementing a new SAE. 

Dr. Krishna Pahari, President of NDRI introduced NDRI explaining how it came to this stage as one of the leading think tanks in Nepal, from a very humble beginning 20 years ago. He then explained NDRI’s activities on food security in the last two decades, which contributed evidence for Nepal’s journey towards zero hunger. He added that development partners need to work closely with the Government and national think tanks like NDRI, in order to support the national capacity.   

Following the remarks was a discussion session moderated by Dr. Pahari where representatives from NSO, WFP, and NDRI all agreed on the need to implement a fresh SAE in Nepal. Mr. Haile Aberra, Head of Programme of WFP Nepal expressed his keen interest in SAE and mentioned that WFP will be happy to collaborate with NSO and NDRI to implement fresh SAE in Nepal. Dr. Pahari concluded the session by stressing the need for enhanced collaboration between the Government, development partners, civil society, and think tanks for the greater good of society at large.

NDRI Executive Director, Dr. Shankar Shrestha concluded the event with a vote of thanks. 

Ms. Ashma Aryal, NDRI’s outreach and communications officer served as the MC of this event.