In order to evaluate the effectiveness of community targeting, a simple simulation was carried out.
The simulation study was defined by three interventions aimed at reducing poverty (the suggestions are plausible but not real):
To increase the number of individuals with a diploma by 10 percent in each county.
To decrease land erosion by 15 percent with respect to the total.
To improve the public drinking-water network (to increase the number of homes with potable water by 10 percent in each county).
Figures 5 and 6 and Table 11 show the results and comparison between the percentage of poor individuals before and after the interventions.
The analysis of the simulation experiment highlights three important results:
| Table 11. Comparison of the percentages of poor people before and after the simulation | |||
|
County |
Before (a) |
After (b) |
Differences [((b-a)/b)*100] |
|
Atahualpa |
59.0 |
42.6 |
-38.686 |
|
Balao |
77.8 |
65.4 |
-18.809 |
|
Cuenca |
29.5 |
18.4 |
-60.590 |
|
Cuyabeno |
83.9 |
73.4 |
-14.237 |
|
El Pan |
71.9 |
56.7 |
-26.683 |
|
Eloy Alfaro |
87.6 |
78.3 |
-11.871 |
|
Guayaquil |
31.7 |
19.0 |
-66.628 |
|
Jama |
73.5 |
60.3 |
-21.889 |
|
Logroño |
85.4 |
73.9 |
-15.495 |
|
Mera |
55.7 |
40.3 |
-38.122 |
|
Montufar |
73.6 |
60.7 |
-21.277 |
|
Morona |
64.3 |
50.5 |
-27.394 |
|
Nangaritza |
72.1 |
58.4 |
-23.389 |
|
Olmedo |
85.7 |
74.3 |
-15.271 |
|
Olmedo |
72.4 |
72.2 |
-0.374 |
|
Pastaza |
44.8 |
33.1 |
-35.255 |
|
Putumayo |
86.0 |
76.0 |
-13.068 |
|
Quito |
10.8 |
09.8 |
-10.481 |
|
Salcedo |
70.2 |
56.3 |
-24.664 |
|
San Juan Bosco |
71.3 |
55.9 |
-27.521 |
|
Sucumbios |
84.0 |
73.3 |
-14.493 |
|
Urbina Jado |
88.8 |
80.5 |
-10.328 |
|
Total |
48.2 |
44.8 |
-7.375 |
Figure 5. Percentage of poor people after the simulation experiment in each county
Figure 6. Differences between before and after the simulation experiment in each county
Mapping poverty requires a clear definition of poverty and an index of poverty that is based on widely available data. The measures of poverty thus estimated must also have a known and well-defined degree of precision so that statistical statements can be made about the precision of the poverty measures in different areas. In order to address this problem, an experiment was carried out in which the definition of the poverty line was changed. Annex B reports the results of this experiment.
