Solomon Islands - Asia & the Pacific

Solomon Islands: Analysis of Poverty from 2005/2006 HIES4.2 The Food Poverty Lines60. The food expenditure from the diaries of HH in the lowest three deciles in each of the regions was analysed, Tables9 Honiara, 10 Provincial Urban and 11 Rural. It was observed that approximately 90% of food expenditure wasaccounted for by around 50 or so items in each of the regions. The top ten items of consumption by householdsin the lowest three deciles for Honiara and rural areas are illustrated in Charts 3 & 4.61. The top 50 or so items together with their share in food intake are shown in columns A, B and C of the tables. Toget the daily per capita a.e Kcal value and per capita a.e daily cost of these diary expenditure items as the basis forthe calculation of the FPL, the following steps were taken:• the diary amounts were grossed up to the total recorded expenditure for the three deciles by the appropriatefactor, (C1) to give a notional total food expenditure based on the listed items, column D;• each item was priced using the Honiara CPI for all purchased items, and either the Honiara market CPI pricefor all Honiara local produce or an average of the observed diary prices/values for HH in the provincial-urbanor rural areas, columns E & F;• the Kcal (energy) value from the South Pacific Food Composition Tables was applied to each food item,column G;• the daily Kcal value represented by each item was then calculated, column H; and finally• the daily cost of each item according to its share in the overall daily food intake was estimated, column I.62. Summing the daily Kcal values of the three expenditure patterns (J) shows that Honiara HH were notionallyacquiring an average of 1,627 kcal per capita a.e per day, provincial urban HH 2,194 kcal per capita a.e per day andrural HH 1,932 kcal per capita a.e per day. In order to get to the minimum kcal daily food energy intake (K) thesevalues must be grossed-up to 2100 Kcal by the ratio of the recorded Kcal value to the minimum (L).63. The notional estimated daily cost of the food items (M) is then grossed up also by the factor (L). This gives theadjusted daily cost of acquiring the minimum 2100 kcal per day from the listed items.64. Finally, the daily cost is converted to aweekly value (O). Thus the cost of acquiringa minimum adult equivalent diet in Honiarais estimated at SBD8.96 per day and SBD62.17per week. For provincial-urban HH the costsare SBD6.05 per day and SBD42.33 per week,and for rural HH SBD3.93 per day and SBD27.48per week. These are the Food Poverty Linesused in the analysis, Table 12.Table 12Weekly Adult Equivalent Per Capita Food Poverty LinesFood Poverty LinePer capita HH Per capita a.ea.e per day per weekPer HH per week a.eSBDaverage for HH inlowest three decilesNational Average 4.6632.59182.87Honiara8.9662.17446.40Provincial Urban 6.0542.33249.04Rural Areas 3.93 27.48 156.1765. This table indicates that a low-expenditure Honiara HH would need to spend almost three times (SBD446.40) asmuch as a rural household (SBD156.17) each week to acquire a basic minimum food intake for all members of theHH. This takes account of the larger HH size of Honiara HH as well as the higher cost of food purchases in Honiaracompared to the prices/values of food either produced for home consumption or purchased in rural/provincialmarkets.Estimation of National Poverty Lines and Poverty Incidence23