Solomon Islands - Asia & the Pacific

Solomon Islands: Analysis of Poverty from 2005/2006 HIES80. There are also many more households and individuals who have expenditure only just above the basic needspoverty line and who are therefore vulnerable. It is estimated that additionally around 18,500 rural people (including8070 children) and 3,885 people in Honiara (including 1450 children) have expenditure no more than ten percentabove the rural and Honiara BNPL respectively. With rising prices and/or declining incomes/expenditure thesepeople are highly vulnerable to slipping below the poverty lines.81. Based on the aggregate national average basic needs poverty line it is estimated that 121,063 people were livingin basic-needs poverty in Solomon Islands. This included an estimated 47,238 children. Additionally those childrenliving in households where the per capita adult equivalent expenditure was no more than ten percent about thelevel of the national BNPL numbered an additional 10,136. Thus approximately 57,000 children in Solomon Islandswere either already living below the poverty line or were highly vulnerable to falling into poverty.82. These figures suggest that although Honiara is a source of work and employment for many, there are, nevertheless,many households whose expenditure cannot cover the basic needs costs of a reasonable minimum standard ofliving. There are many who would be classified as working poor. They may be in employment, either full or parttime,but their incomes and thus expenditure is insufficient to meet all their family’s needs.83. Households that appear to be least disadvantaged in terms of the poverty line are those in the provincial-urbancentres. Many in these centres are employed either by government or the provincial administrations. Indeed thesurvey reveals that almost 70% of HH heads in the provincial urban centres were in some form of employment,and even amongst the lowest three deciles the proportion was around 60%. These HH have the benefit of lowerlocal produce prices and less need to spend on non-food items. Thus they appear generally better-off relative tothose in Honiara.84. The proportion of rural households below the rural poverty line is lower than the proportion of HH in Honiarabelow the urban poverty line. Average expenditure is lower in the rural areas, primarily because food costs/valuesare lower and there is little need (or opportunity) for non-food expenditure. Therefore, the basic needs povertyline is lower and as a higher proportion of food comes from own production, the extent of poverty is itself lower.However, as will be seen later in the report, these rural HH often lack access to essential basic services and are thusmore disadvantaged in terms of opportunity and access. This is termed the “poverty of opportunity” as opposedto the poverty of income or consumption.85. In considering the basic incidence of poverty it is also useful to estimate the number of those other householdsand population who might be vulnerable to falling into poverty, that is those who are only just now living abovethe BNPL. A sensitivity analysis has therefore been done with the BNPL being increased by 10% to estimate theadditional number of HH and population that would then fall below the BNPL.86. For Honiara a 10% increase in the BNPL to SBD152.94 p.c.a.e per week would bring an additional 510 householdsand 3885 people into poverty. This would raise the incidence of households in poverty by 5.1 percentage pointsto 29.7%, and would raise the proportion of the Honiara population below the poverty by 5.6 percentage pointsto 37.8%.87. For the rural areas raising the BNPL by 10% to SBD43.55 p.c.a.e per week would bring 2471 households into povertyrepresenting and additional 18,504 people. This would raise the incidence of rural households in poverty by 3.3Estimation of National Poverty Lines and Poverty Incidence27