Regional Poverty Observatory

As a result of a decision made by Summit, SADC aims to launch the Regional Poverty Observatory by September 2013 to provide adequate and meaningful monitoring services. The Regional Poverty Observatory will function as a forum where all the stakeholders working in poverty eradication at the regional and national levels meet to evaluate and monitor the implementation of the Regional Poverty Reduction Framework. It is designed as a multi-stakeholder consultative forum for monitoring the objectives, targets and actions identified within the SADC poverty reduction programme.

Monitoring may cover income poverty, infrastructure, education, health, and social safety. Poverty analysis and monitoring will be beneficial to all countries and will stimulate progress in the fight against poverty.

The Objectives of the Regional Poverty Observatory are to:

• Help Member States through harmonisation of standards, methods and indicators
• Speed up reforms and execution of national poverty reduction strategies
• Provide regional best practices to supplement the benchmarks of the millennium development goals
• Allow comparative performance analysis across Member States

Considering that poverty eradication is a priority focus of SADC, it is important to ensure that adequate monitoring of poverty and progress toward the Millennium Development Goals.

Access to reliable information on poverty is important for all development initiatives in the SADC region. Monitoring is a critical component of poverty reduction strategies, and an area where there is a compelling need for harmonisation or standardisation of indicators across Member States. Monitoring compliance with agreed regional policies is also an important element of the mandate of regional organisations such as SADC.

SADC has a Regional Statistical Programme and has established a Macro Economic Convergence Programme, but there is a specific function that focuses on poverty at the regional level is required, given its importance.