In support of the millennium development goals: GIS use for poverty reduction tasks

To achieve the goal of poverty reduction, as encapsulated within the Millennium Development Goals, the collection, analysis, and use of geographic information as it relates to the multidimensionality of poverty offers a starting point. The spatial handling of poverty is an emerging paradigm for which researches on the spatial modelling of poverty are required. Attempting to contribute to a better understanding of poverty mapping, this paper examines GIS suitability for use in poverty application areas. GIS analysis functions most appropriate for use in specific poverty mapping tasks are examined. The uses are identified as data integration of socio-economic, environmental, cultural data, etc.; delineation of areas lying within a specified threshold distance from selected features or places; deriving further data from spatial analysis for multivariate analysis of poverty; deriving straight-line and network distances; visualisation and presentation of the results of poverty analysis. Special emphasis is placed on ways in which GIS is being used and its suitability for poverty reduction tasks to help draw out some relevant methodological and policy lessons.