Forum proposes benchmark to measure poverty |25 May 2018

The National Poverty Consensus Forum set up last year to look into the poverty situation in the country met yesterday morning at State House in its first meeting to discuss a proposed benchmark to measure poverty in Seychelles.

During the forum, chaired by President Danny Faure, stakeholders also learned about a poverty survey done in the eastern and southern region of Mahé.

Also present at the forum were ministers, representatives from government organisations and entities, the civil society, the Seychelles Chamber of Commerce and Industry and inter-religious group Sifco.

Following the meeting, Ziggy Adam, the principal policy analyst in the office of the secretary of state for poverty alleviation, said that even though yesterday’s forum gave different propositions on how to alleviate poverty, they have still been given another three weeks to re-look at the propositions on poverty and to give further inputs.

After all the propositions have been taken into consideration, the full definition of poverty in Seychelles will be made public.

Mr Adam, who also made a presentation on the poverty survey carried out in eastern and southern Mahé, added: “It was necessary to have this proposed definition so as to really and clearly have a benchmark that will define poverty in Seychelles.”

To have a benchmark to define poverty in Seychelles was a recommendation proposed from the first forum held in October last year.

Mr Adam added that poverty surveys carried out in households experiencing poverty were mostly identified by their district administrators.

Five main criteria were used to establish the benchmark for the level of poverty and the criteria were based on living, health, education, nutrition and revenue standards.

“The benchmark will allow us to know if a family or somebody is  extremely poor  or at risk of getting poor,” he said.

Mr Adam explained that only some data of the survey was given to the forum as the Seychelles Bureau of Statistics is still collecting data for the whole of Seychelles, of which the results will be published later.