Subjective Assessments, Participatory Methods and Poverty Dynamics: The Stages-of-Progress Method

Abstract

The Stages-of-Progress methodology helps examine households’ movements out of poverty and into poverty. More important, it helps uncover the reasons responsible for these movements, thereby feeding directly into policy formulation. I present the steps in this methodology, discussing briefly some results from applications carried out with colleagues in 236 diverse communities of India, Kenya, Uganda, Peru and North Carolina, USA, examining the pathways traversed by a total of more than 25,000 households. Next, I discuss how reliably this recall-based, participatory and community-driven methodology works in practice. Strengths and weaknesses of the method are examined in conclusion.