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The Geography of Poverty and Inequality in the Lao PDR
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... Peasant engagement in employment may be further influenced by the accessibility of the village and the degree of land dispossession. Accessibility has been shown to impact the availability of development opportunities in Lao PDR, which vary across geographical regions (Epprecht, Minot, Dewina, Messerli, & Heinimann, 2008). Proximity to the provincial capital may offer better access to markets, public services, transportation, and communication networks, and people living in this area tend to have a greater choice of livelihood options. ...
... The eight classes of slope data derive from FAO Soils Portal (Fischer et al., 2008), reclassified into three classes in ArcGIS (ESRI, 2011) Accessibility Measured by travel time (in hours) from the area under land-based investment implementation to the nearest provincial capital Calculation in ArcGIS (ESRI, 2011) using the 2015 PHC data (Epprecht, Bosoni, et al., 2018) following the approach suggested by Epprecht et al. (2008) V. Nanhthavong, S. Bieri, Anh-Thu Nguyen et al. World Development 155 (2022) 105885 of the transformation of rural livelihoods induced by land-based investments and implications for precarity. ...
... First, with greater land dispossession, displaced households who did not retain sufficient land to sustain their livelihoods were forced to engage in low-quality wage-labor within the investments to compensate for their lost livelihoods. Second, proletarianization within the land-based investments may be more prevalent in remote areas, due to the limited availability of alternatives (Epprecht et al., 2008;Nanhthavong et al., 2021). This includes alternative employment, such as those more readily available or attractive options in provincial capitals, or prohibitively high costs of clearing previously uncultivated land for agricultural expansion Epprecht, Weber, et al., 2018;MAF, 2014;Mccarthy, Vel, & Afiff, 2012;Oxfam, 2011). ...
Labor is central to the debates on global land-based investment. Proponents purport that these investments are an avenue for rural transformation from resource- to wage-based livelihoods through the generation of employment and contribution to poverty reduction. Drawing on a recent, unique national dataset on land concessions in Lao PDR, this paper uses an agrarian political economy lens to investigate how land-based investments live up to this expectation. The paper analyzes potential determinants of the degree to which different social groups engage in wage-labor within land-based investments. Results show that while land-based investments create a significant absolute number of jobs, former land users were offered predominantly low-skilled and seasonal jobs. The effects of these investments on rural employment are uneven depending on degrees of land and resource dispossession, the extent of job creation, and the availability of alternative opportunities in the region. In the majority of cases, former land users, especially women were pushed into precarious conditions through three processes: dispossession without proletarianization; limited proletarianization; and adverse proletarianization. We argue that the promotion of land-based investments as an approach for rural development, particularly along the gradient of transforming resource- to wage-labor based livelihoods, is ineffective without concurrent opportunities within and beyond the agricultural sector to absorb the labor reallocated from traditional livelihoods. Enforcing labor regulations, including restrictions on hiring of foreign labor, compliance with minimum wages, and relevant skills transfer are essential to minimize precarization and increase benefits for local people. Further, protecting peasants’ individual and common land-use rights is imperative to minimize the concurrence of precarization and increasing traditional vulnerability.
... In Lao PDR, accessibility is a primary determinant of well-being outcomes. The availability of well-being resources and accessibility to markets and services vary widely across geographical regions (Coulombe et al., 2016;Epprecht et al., 2008). ...
... Food provision through markets played an important role in improved food security of these villages. This aligns with the overall development patterns in Lao PDR, in which better living standards are observed in urban, lowland areas (Coulombe et al., 2016;Epprecht et al., 2008). ...
Land acquisitions are transforming land-use systems globally, and their characteristics and impacts on human well-being have been extensively analysed through local case studies and regional or global inventories. However, national-level analysis that is crucial for national policy on sustainable agricultural investments and land use is still lacking. This paper conducts an archetype analysis of a unique dataset on land concessions in Lao PDR to provide a national-scale assessment of the impacts of land acquisitions on human well-being in 294 affected villages. The results show that land acquisitions influence human well-being through 18 distinct pathways. These pathways describe how some land acquisitions enhance or maintain well-being, while others elicit adverse impacts or trade-offs between well-being dimensions, particularly food security, income, and livelihood resilience. They further reveal five archetypical processes that mediate the effects of land acquisitions on well-being through: (i) shifting access to land and natural resources; (ii) commercialization of agriculture; (iii) availability of development opportunities; (iv) environmental impacts; and (v) employment opportunities within and outside land acquisitions. These processes affect well-being by shaping livelihood portfolios and dependence on natural resources. The majority of land acquisitions trigger trade-offs or adverse impacts on well-being. The small number of villages where well-being increased despite the presence of land acquisitions were mainly shaped by narrow and rigid preconditions. The archetypical processes and the explanatory factors suggest that it is imperative to protect smallholders’ land-use rights and to avoid large-scale deals, as their adverse impacts outweigh opportunities and are more severe than the impacts of small-scale acquisitions. Employment opportunities may provide additional cash income but should not be exclusively relied upon.
... In the literature, several studies have employed spatial statistical analyses to explore poverty and have concluded that poverty has a spatial element (Vista and Murayama 2011;Thongdara et al. 2012;Epprecht et al. 2008;Okwi et al. 2007). Using small area estimation to study poverty in the People's Republic of Laos, Epprecht et al. (2008) mapped density of poverty and estimated various measures of poverty and welfare measures at a spatially highly disaggregated level. ...
... In the literature, several studies have employed spatial statistical analyses to explore poverty and have concluded that poverty has a spatial element (Vista and Murayama 2011;Thongdara et al. 2012;Epprecht et al. 2008;Okwi et al. 2007). Using small area estimation to study poverty in the People's Republic of Laos, Epprecht et al. (2008) mapped density of poverty and estimated various measures of poverty and welfare measures at a spatially highly disaggregated level. Baud et al. (2008) mapped a multidimensional composite index of poverty and hotspots of multiple deprivations at the ward level across New Delhi in India, based on census data. ...
The multidimensional poverty index (MPI) is generally credited for better capturing the various components of poverty. Where such indexes have a spatial component, opportunity arises for analyzing changes in the spatial concentration of multidimensional poverty over given periods across space. Using current available MPI data for Gauteng province, South Africa, we apply spatial statistical analysis techniques to measure the degree of spatial concentration, spread and orientation of poverty across the various wards. Results reveal distinct variations in concentration, spatial spread and orientation of poverty across the province. These results open up possibilities of spatially targeted state interventions for reducing poverty.
... Poverty can be defined as a situation of deprivation that impacts the livelihood of individuals and communities in a country. Poverty has many components, including economic vulnerability to many types of disruptions, a lack of opportunity to participate in decision-making, and a lack of access to knowledge (Epprecht et al. 2008). According to United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), poverty can be described as a scarcity of income and essential resources that makes it hard or challenging for people to live a dignified life and provide for themselves. ...
Mekong River, known as the beating heart of mainland Southeast Asia, has been facing degradation of its natural flow of water due to anthropogenic activities across the river initiated by the Chinese government through the construction of hydropower dams. As a consequence, the river which provides a key source of water supplies and resources for the millions of people who live across its watershed has suffered significantly resulting in inequality and poverty in the community. The purpose of this study is to examine the root causes of inequality and poverty in the Lower Mekong region, as well as to identify ASEAN’s role in responding to the situation. The findings revealed that due to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects through the construction of dams along the river as well as ASEAN’s inability to resolve and address the crisis owing to economic dependence and difficulty to reach a consensus among its members has been a contributing factor to the ineffectiveness of ASEAN in the conflict resolution. From the findings, it can be concluded that China’s financial hegemony over the Mekong countries can have an impact on the region’s future levels of poverty and inequality.
... In Laos, fair development is intrinsically tied to the challenges of growing disparities (Warr et al. 2018), inequality of treatment, and unequal opportunities (Epprecht et al. 2008;Chareunsy 2012). According to the World Bank (2021b), the Gini index has increased from 32.6 in 2002 to 38.8 in 2018, reflecting a 19% increase in inequality (Warr et al. 2018). ...
... Roads provide access to services that have a direct impact on socioeconomic well-being such as schools, healthcare, labor markets, and credit facilities. On the other hand, some scholars warn about the unequal capacities of target populations to seize the opportunities brought by rural roads through improved accessibility and transportation [12][13][14]. Roads may exacerbate poverty and vulnerability through sudden increase in economic differentiation. Not all members of the community benefit equally from the access to roads. ...
Road expansion has played a prominent role in the agrarian transition that marked the integra-tion of swidden-based farming systems into the market economy in Southeast Asia. Rural roads deeply altered the landscape and livelihood structures by allowing the penetration of boom crops such as hybrid maize in remote territories. In this article, we investigate the impact of rural road developments on livelihoods in northern Laos through a longitudinal study conducted over a pe-riod of 15 years in a forest frontier. We studied adaptive management strategies of local stake-holders through the combination of individual surveys, focus group discussions, participatory mapping and remote-sensing approaches. The study revealed the short-term benefits of the maize feeder roads on poverty alleviation and rural development, but also the negative long-term effects on agroecosystem health and agricultural productivity related to unsustainable land use. Lessons learnt about the mechanisms of agricultural intensification helped understanding the constraints faced by external interventions promoting sustainable land management practices. When negoti-ated by local communities for their own interest, roads may provide livelihood-enhancing oppor-tunities through access to external resources, rather than undermining them.
... Around 33.6% of the Lao population lived below the poverty line and they often earned less than the lowest-paid government worker, AEDs would be even less affordable than reported here. 48 Another concern was for children with epilepsy (CWE) because pediatric strength and formulation were available in less than 1% of all facilities (eg, phenobarbital 60 mg, phenytoin 50 mg, no liquid formulation). This issue was documented in several other areas. ...
Objective
Epilepsy is a chronic condition treatable by cost‐effective antiepileptic drugs (AEDs), but limited access to treatment was documented. The availability and affordability of good quality of AEDs play a significant role in access to good health care. This study aimed to assess the availability, affordability, and quality of long‐term AEDs in Lao PDR.
Method
A cross‐sectional study was performed in both public and private drug supply chains in urban and rural areas in Lao PDR. Data on AEDs availability and price were obtained through drug suppliers. Affordability was estimated as the number of day wages the lowest‐paid government employee must work to purchase a monthly treatment. Samples of AEDs were collected, and the quality of AEDs was assessed through Medicine Quality Assessment Reporting Guidelines.
Results
Out of 237 outlets visited, only 50 outlets (21.1% [95% CI 16.1‐26.8]) had at least one AED available. The availability was significantly different between urban (24.9%) and rural areas (10.0%), P = .017. Phenobarbital 100 mg was the most available (14.3%); followed by sodium valproate 200 mg (9.7%), phenytoin 100 mg (9.7%), and carbamazepine 200 mg (8.9%). In provincial/district hospitals and health centers, AEDs were provided free of charge. In other healthcare facilities, phenytoin 100 mg and phenobarbital 100 mg showed the best affordability (1.0 and 1.2 day wages, respectively) compared to carbamazepine 200 mg (2.3 days) and other AEDs. No sample was identified as counterfeit, but 15.0% [95% CI 7.1‐26.6] of samples were classified as of poor quality.
Significance
We quantified and qualified the various factors contributing to the high treatment gap in Lao PDR, adding to diagnostic issues (not assessed here). Availability remains very low and phenobarbital which is the most available and affordable AED was the worst in terms of quality. A drug policy addressing epilepsy treatment gap would reduce these barriers.
... While aggregate poverty levels have declined in Laos, improvement has been faster in lowland areas than in uplands, where pockets of poverty persist in remote areas particularly among groups that struggle to compete in an increasingly competitive market economy. Villages without road access comprise 2 out of every 5 poor households, due to lack of market access and flat land for agricultural production (Epprecht et al. 2008). Of particular concern, some segments of society are experiencing new poverty, prompted by landlessness and dispossession resulting from investment projects, concessions and other factors. ...
The Mekong region is in the midst of profound social and environmental change. Despite urbanization, the region remains predominantly rural, with more than 60 percent of its population living in rural areas. The vast majority of these people are engaged in agriculture. This population not only continues to grow, but is also disproportionately poor and reliant on land and forest resources. Due to the rapid growth of its agricultural sector, the Mekong region has become a global center of production and trade for agricultural commodities such as rubber, rice, cassava, wood, sugar cane and oil palm. While accelerated flows of global investment and the trade of land-intensive commodities have contributed to growing GDP and the enrichment of some societal actors, outcomes have been highly-unequal; the benefits of development have largely accrued to the urban elite, while costs have largely been borne by the rural poor, transforming rural land relations and presenting new insecurities for land tenure. The Mekong region may be at a tipping-point, and transformational change is imperative to sustainably address the needs of agricultural smallholders.
Data and information are urgently needed to understand these changes, to inform more equitable and innovative decision-making, and to monitor the outcomes of these decisions. The State of Land in the Mekong Region thus brings together key data and information on current status and trajectories of change with regard to land resources, their social distribution, and the conditions of governance that shape them.
... Significant variation in household income from cropping, non-agricultural activities and total income between province categories was identified in our study, likely reflecting differences in socio-economic development between provinces in Laos [25,26]. In the survey sites of XYL and XK, commercial maize cultivation is currently more prominent than in HP, due to high local demand and proximity to markets in Thailand and Vietnam, respectively. ...
This study assessed smallholder finances and their attitudes towards the Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) vaccination programme, when 1 620 000 vaccine doses were provided for strategic administration in large ruminants in FMD ‘high-risk’ areas in Laos between 2012 and 2016. Farmers ( n = 168) in the provinces of Xayyabouli (XYL), Xiengkhoung (XK) and Huaphan (HP), were interviewed. Over 91% of the farmers responded that their livestock were vaccinated for FMD, with over 86% ranking FMD vaccination as a good or very good intervention. No FMD cases were reported from the vaccinated provinces after May 2013. Examination of the total income per household in XYL, XK and HP indicated earnings of US$5060(±650), US$4260(±294) and US$1691(±676), respectively ( P = 0.001), with 23%, 28% and 68% of the total incomes from annual sales of large ruminant, respectively. Of the farmers in XYL, XK and HP, 83%, 93% and 70% ( P = 0.009) said their annual income increased compared with 2012, and 47%, 64% and 41%, respectively ( P = 0.005), indicated this increase was from additional large ruminant sales. The study indicated that this large FMD vaccination programme was well regarded by participating farmers and may have provided satisfactory suppression of the disease in Laos, despite not achieving the preferred vaccination coverage. Continuation of the vaccination programme in FMD high-risk areas is suggested as desirable.
One of the most universal patterns in the spatial distribution of poverty in developing countries is that the incidence of poverty is lower in urban areas than in rural areas. It is widely accepted, though less well documented, that remote rural areas tend to be poorer than areas with good market access. Furthermore, there is concern that remote rural areas may not benefit equally from economic growth. In this paper, we examine poverty trends in rural Uganda to test whether remote rural areas benefit from economic growth to the same degree as better connected rural areas. Applying a variant of small‐area estimation methods to household survey data and several Demographic and Health Surveys carried out over 10 years, we confirm that remote rural areas are poorer than better connected rural areas, but find no evidence that they have fallen further behind over this period.
We developed interpolated climate surfaces for global land areas (excluding Antarctica) at a spatial resolution of 30 arc s (often referred to as 1-km spatial resolution). The climate elements considered were monthly precipitation and mean, minimum, and maximum temperature. Input data were gathered from a variety of sources and, where possible, were restricted to records from the 1950-2000 period. We used the thin-plate smoothing spline algorithm implemented in the ANUSPLIN package for interpolation, using latitude, longitude, and elevation as independent variables. We quantified uncertainty arising from the input data and the interpolation by mapping weather station density, elevation bias in the weather stations, and elevation variation within grid cells and through data partitioning and cross validation. Elevation bias tended to be negative (stations lower than expected) at high latitudes but positive in the tropics. Uncertainty is highest in mountainous and in poorly sampled areas. Data partitioning showed high uncertainty of the surfaces on isolated islands, e.g. in the Pacific. Aggregating the elevation and climate data to 10 arc min resolution showed an enormous variation within grid cells, illustrating the value of high-resolution surfaces. A comparison with an existing data set at 10 arc min resolution showed overall agreement, but with significant variation in some regions. A comparison with two high-resolution data sets for the United States also identified areas with large local differences, particularly in mountainous areas. Compared to previous global climatologies, ours has the following advantages: the data are at a higher spatial resolution (400 times greater or more); more weather station records were used; improved elevation data were used; and more information about spatial patterns of uncertainty in the data is available. Owing to the overall low density of available climate stations, our surfaces do not capture of all variation that may occur at a resolution of 1 km, particularly of precipitation in mountainous areas. In future work, such variation might be captured through knowledge-based methods and inclusion of additional co-variates, particularly layers obtained through remote sensing.
Poverty maps provide information on the spatial distribution of living standards. They are an important tool for policymakers, who rely on them to allocate transfers and inform policy design. Poverty maps are also an important tool for researchers, who use them to investigate the relationship between distribution within a country and growth or other economic, environmental, or social outcomes. A major impediment to the development of poverty maps has been that needed data on income or consumption typically are available only from relatively small surveys. Census data have the required sample size but generally do not have the required information. This article uses the case of Ecuador to demonstrate how sample survey data can be combined with census data to yield predicted poverty rates for the population covered by the census. These poverty rates are found to be precisely measured, even at fairly disaggregated levels. However, beyond a certain level of spatial disaggregation, standard errors rise rapidly.
Geographically weighted regression (GWR) is an important local technique for exploring spatial heterogeneity in data relationships. In fitting with Tobler's first law of geography, each local regression of GWR is estimated with data whose influence decays with distance, distances that are commonly defined as straight line or Euclidean. However, the complexity of our real world ensures that the scope of possible distance metrics is far larger than the traditional Euclidean choice. Thus in this article, the GWR model is investigated by applying it with alternative, non-Euclidean distance (non-ED) metrics. Here we use as a case study, a London house price data set coupled with hedonic independent variables, where GWR models are calibrated with Euclidean distance (ED), road network distance and travel time metrics. The results indicate that GWR calibrated with a non-Euclidean metric can not only improve model fit, but also provide additional and useful insights into the nature of varying relationships within the house price data set.
During the past decade, the need for effective targeted programs that provide significant support to the poor within tightening budget constraints has become more apparent than ever. The design of efficient programs that are tailored to the specific conditions and needs of each country presents a challenge that government agencies and international development institutions must confront. This report is intended to contribute to this challenge by addressing the complex factors that should be considered when designing poverty alleviation programs. This report presents alternative methods of geographical targeting aimed at improving the living standards of the poor, and carefully evaluates their effect on social welfare and their implications for public resource allocation. The report demonstrates that using geographical information systems (GIS) makes possible a detailed mapping of the incidence of poverty in the country that can be used, in turn, for more precise targeting. The incorporation of data from a wide variety of sources through GISs also reveals the multi-dimensional aspects of poverty and helps to more accurately identify factors relevant for designing effective poverty alleviation programs when budgets are tight. Finally, the report also shows that GIS methods can be more broadly applied to support targeted service delivery and access to the poor, for instance, by optimizing the planning and location of health and education centers in poor, under-served areas.
Spatial nonstationarity is a condition in which a simple “global” model cannot explain the relationships between some sets of variables. The nature of the model must alter over space to reflect the structure within the data. In this paper, a technique is developed, termed geographically weighted regression, which attempts to capture this variation by calibrating a multiple regression model which allows different relationships to exist at different points in space. This technique is loosely based on kernel regression. The method itself is introduced and related issues such as the choice of a spatial weighting function are discussed. Following this, a series of related statistical tests are considered which can be described generally as tests for spatial nonstationarity. Using Monte Carlo methods, techniques are proposed for investigating the null hypothesis that the data may be described by a global model rather than a non-stationary one and also for testing whether individual regression coefficients are stable over geographic space. These techniques are demonstrated on a data set from the 1991 U.K. census relating car ownership rates to social class and male unemployment. The paper concludes by discussing ways in which the technique can be extended.
Recent theoretical advances have brought income and wealth distributions back into a prominent position in growth and development theories, and as determinants of specific socio-economic outcomes, such as health or levels of violence. Empirical investigation of the importance of these relationships, however, has been held back by the lack of sufficiently detailed high quality data on distributions. Household surveys that include reasonable measures of income or consumption can be used to calculate distributional measures but at low levels of aggregation these samples are rarely representative or of sufficient size to yield statistically reliable estimates. At the same time, census (or other large sample) data of sufficient size to allow disaggregation either have no information about income or consumption, or measure these variables poorly. This note outlines a statistical procedure to combine these types of data to take advantage of the detail in household sample surveys and the co...
This paper reports an application of household survey data collected from grain producing areas in five provinces of China to issues of the determinants of rural inequality. Previous studies suggest that non-agricultural activities have been the major cause of rural income inequality, which has important implications for policy formulation. However, our results show that inequality within the grain producing areas was also very high, with differences in crop income as the major source of inequality. The policy implications are also different from those of previous studies. While some suggest that an increase in agricultural income can reduce inequality, our results indicate that this is not universally true. In some cases, whether the increase in crop income has come from state procurement also matters. These results call for a more cautious and area-specific approach to policy formulation as far as inequality is concerned.
Previous research shows that geographic targeting in poverty programs is not accurate unless the geographic units are small. Household surveys, however, can rarely estimate poverty rates for more than 5–10 regions. This study uses data from Vietnam to illustrate a method for generating disaggregated poverty maps. First, the relationship between poverty and household indicators is estimated using survey data. Then, census data on those same indicators are used to estimate poverty rates for each of the 543 rural districts. The results indicate that Vietnamese poverty is concentrated in the north and in districts furthest from the coast and cities.
This study uses a decomposition of the Theil inequality index across eight countries to examine the recent evolution of inequality in East Asia. It is found that inequality in the region rose between 1990 and 1997, but that the increase was driven by higher inequality within countries, rather than between them. The most significant contribution to the overall rise in regional inequality came from urban China, where inequality doubled between 1990 and 1997. Our analysis suggests that policies to tackle inequality should be aimed at national and sub-national levels, and particularly at addressing growing rural-urban disparities.