Household Income and Poverty Level Indicators

The main material used for the construction of the households’ wall are cement and natural materials like clay, with cement being the highest (64%).

The type of energy used for almost all these households is wood. As the above chart shows, more than 87% of the households used wood as source of cooking energy, 11% used charcoal and only 1% used gas or electricity to cook.

For asset ownership, the results are shown above. The different types of assets asked were Electricity, Radio, Television, Table, Fridge, Fan, Home internet, Desktop, Sofas, Gas stoves, Bed net, Air, Conditioners, Bicycle, Car, Motorbike and Cupboard. As can be seen in the chart, less than half (about 46%) of the household do not own more than four of the aforementioned assets with about 1% owning neither of the assets. The average number of these assets owned by a household is about 5 assets.

The survey also collected information on the difficulty in meeting food needs during the COVID-19 lockdown of 2020 as well as where household source their stockpile of food items. The results on difficulty of meeting food needs are reported above. We see that about 92% of households find it difficult to meet their food needs during the lockdown, while only 8% were able to meet their food needs during that period. Therefore, the lockdown seems to have increased food insecurity in the surveyed households. Hence, there was indeed a need for households to be provided with food aid. In this regard, the government intervention can be regarded as apt.

The results show a substantial proportion (about 45%) of the households interviewed reported that their monthly income is between GMD 1,001 to 5,000. However, approximately 17% reported that they receive less than GMD 1,000 while less than 2% received GMD 25000 or higher as monthly income. Thus, a significant number of households included in this study can be regarded as low-income earners.

In addition, there is evidence that the COVID-19 food aid distribution highly targeted the poor and middle-income earners. More than half (about 61%) of the food aid were distributed to the households receiving a monthly income of GMD 5,000 or less. 24% of these food items were distributed to those whose monthly income ranges from GMD 5,001 to GMD 10,000, 13% was distributed to those earning from GMD 10,001 to GMD 25,000 while the rest of the 2% of these food items was distributed to those receiving above GMD 25,000.

The survey also collected data on livestock ownership by the households. The type of livestock asked are cows/bulls, cow, goats, sheep, chicken, horses and donkeys. The results indicate that less than half (49%) of the households own more than three of the livestock asked and about 17% of them own neither of the livestock. The average number of these livestock owned by households is about 4.

The result on stockpile of food items is summarized above. Majority of the households surveyed get their stockpile by buying from the market and keeping it (about 51%) and from own production (about 44%). Together these two sources constitute about 95% of sources of food stocks for the households. Interestingly, about 2.5 % reported that the COVID-19 food aid they received was a source of their stockpile for food items. This highlights the important the COVID-19 food aid was for some households.