POVERTY AND POVERTY MEASUREM ENT APPROACH To effectively measure poverty it is obvious that they have to be identified and

mapped. Poverty mapping tackle the poor by identifying there situation. In Poverty mapping the major weakness is that it process have no regard to individual or household in a community but rather the community as a whole, hence there is a problem, also comparism between multiple areas are completely absent. It can only be done in villages not in urban areas. The important strength it is objective for community identification and is easy to use method.

Experts Measure poverty in different ways, although past perspectives shape present debates and that economist, policy makers, activist and poor people have different stakes and opinion to the concept hence measurement must also vary.

Meanwhile, Poverty analysis and measurement is a relatively new subject in the realm of public statistics, or rather a renewed one, since it was a central concern in the earlier days of the European statistical offices in England and other countries (Simon S. 1997). However, the issues of poverty came to be treated in terms of income distribution and unemployment, and also as a condition derived from personal handicaps, rather than as poverty as such. The assumption was that in a well organized and modern economy everybody should have a stable employment and a "satisfactory" income, and it was the task of statistical agencies to monitor deviations to this general expectation, in order to prompt for the necessary corrective measures. (Simon S. 1997).

Barely study on the subject of poverty started already in the 1950's with the severe problems of famine afflicting large population groups in Asia and Africa, and studies showing the worldwide problems of malnutrition and their long-term consequences. The relevance of poverty as an issue increased with the perception that economic development was not being successful in many countries, and, even when it was successful, it often left large groups at the margins, suffering the impact of social, economic and political change on traditional patterns of social and economic organization.

2.3.1 Income poverty Aparajita B. (2008), uses Income to estimate poverty. However the use of income had varied disadvantages which include, It is a derived variable which supposed to comprised of all component and sources of Income, that it require accurately identified and accounting framework is applied to estimate Income appropriately. The accounting structure should disaggregate the items of cost and receipt in other to minimized chances of under or over reporting. In the method household Income comprised of farm income and non farm income is use as a basis for assessment of income poverty. For the income difference method the major disadvantage it has not taking into consideration bitterness, division, exclusion, wealth, chance, and location. Income was primarily use to set a minimum level called a poverty line in which any income below that line was consider in poverty.

Paxson 1992), Deaton (1992) and Alderman, uses living Standard as an index, they measured it using current consumer spending or current Income. However spending is generally preferred since it is a measure of living standard, because current spending is a better indicator of current

Income because current satisfaction is directly dependent on consumption but not Income. Also current consumption is an indicator of long term average well being since it reveals information about Incomes at other times past or future. But Income varies over time especially in agrarian society which depend on weather and state of nature and using Income as a an indicator of well being is questioned on the ground of in correct or failure to declare income correctly by respondents Income is a secret issue that are not disclosed. But expenditure is not sensitive as Income.

Therefore, it is common for farmers to fail to declare Income because of fear of tax, security reasons and other government related tax policy, consequently exaggeration of poverty is paramount under such situation. As such expenditure is often preferred. They too uses the spending and Income to set a poverty line, below which an individual is considered poor. Another biased method is assessed well being by Individual command over commodities. In this method it divided line Between necessities and luxuries on minimum income. For commodities base method of setting poverty line, in spite of its advantage in ease of incorporation into questionnaire yet it is clouded with subjectivity. This is because it is common to have a mismatch between estimated nutritional requirement of individual and actual consumption. It also rules out the issue of economies of scales between household. Poverty depth generally, rely from most of the previous methods on Income but Gerhard and others in their work criticized the use of Income as being crude measure of poverty. To them Income comprised of tax and family size were also another impediment to size of Income. Although their argument were significant but can give a good measure, since it can be objectively measured if tax and family size, depreciation and other forms of payment by the individual were taking into consideration.

Even the Income of individual cannot as well serve because other forms of received by the family are supposed to be accounted as Income. In this light it is pertinent to use Household Income than personal income alone because if personal income alone were use certain household have support from household members are not usually counted and considering the type of culture prevalence where people within household assist in different capacity hence such household are under reported. 2.3.2 Absolute Poverty Poverty are measured on absolute sense: In this a minimum sets of resource persons need to survive acute hunger, deprivation are said to constitute basic need which are converted into the ingredients which enter in the minimum basket of essential goods and services regardless of their definition into common denominator usually a monetary value. The absolute implies total or cumulative. Serrano, M. and Raco, J. (2009) uses absolute or total expenditure level to classify household poverty, the method disregard geographic characteristic of household under study. In their method the absolute or total expenditure of all household were summed. Setting poverty line, in this method the society was divided into two categories, The poor category and Non poor category and called it a poverty line, margin or line is set for any total expenditure below it were consider under poverty.

The absolute method is sometimes called the general poverty line which is usually defined by the total cost of the required basket of goods needed to satisfy the basic consumer needs such as food, clothing , housing , education ,health and other basic requirements. The weakness of this method implies that it does not take care of seasonal, regional and cultural differences in consumption pattern, difference between two household with different sizes cannot be possible

and even within household of the same size the composition of the household members vary hence their exist a variation on expenditure ascribed from such difference, geographical characteristics which are vital are not put into view other variation are gender, age, season, climate, food imbalances. Moreover, the definition of this minimum is not clear what are criteria of setting the minimum? no measure to capture shelter, clothing, and transportation to place of work or farm, others are variation based on satisfaction or utility by individual household member are neglected. Later on, an updated version of the method incorporate the household size, in this method ratio of total expenditure level and house hold size were used to provide a head count measure. The weakness of the head count measure is the disregard to composition of household members since differences occur when a household has many children below the 18 or when a household has more elderly that are above 65 years. Such a household will invariably have different absolute expenditure. Another weakness is measurement of social equality, association, difference in location and living condition, opportunity are all ignored.

Another way to assess household well being is to assess in changes in household expenditure pattern including changes in proportion of total expenditure that household uses for food, a drop in proportion of food expenditure is associated with improvement in level of household well being. Assets ownership and ownership of specific consumer durable and improvement in

housing conditions are also an indication of household well being. So poverty line is in this when the changes were below set target.

2.3.3 Relative Poverty

Another approach to poverty measurement is the use of relative poverty approach.Relative poverty, which is a measurement of the resources and living conditions of parts of the population in relation to others are the two major ways of assess poverty, relative implies In Relation to other people level. Measure the segment of population that are poor relative to the set Income of the general population. Line is set at of the mean Income or 40th percentile of the distribution or average Income of 40% of Population. The number of population whose incomes is less than predetermine percentage of mean Income of 50% or less of the mean Income are class to be poor. Relative method uses resource and living condition of part of population in relation to others are considered and classify some as poor and some as not poor. In the method Individual are considered poor when their Income or expenditure is less than the basic needs poverty line set for the group or class within the population usually (Calculated on consumption per adult equivalent per 28days).this also is not appropriate since it measures inequalities which exist in any society.