Measuring Poverty in the Palestinian Territories

Seminar paper from the year 2021 in the subject Politics - Topic: Globalization, Political Economics, grade: 7,5, Maastricht University (Faculty of Social Science), course: Globalisation and Poverty: A Connected World, language: English, abstract: This paper aims to analyze, specifically for the context of the Palestinian territories, which conceptions and definitions of poverty best understand the situation, so that efficient measurement methods can be derived from them. For reasons that will be explained throughout the paper, a combination of poverty mapping as well as an adapted version of the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), originally conceived in 2011 by Sabina Alkire and James Foster, is proposed as the best option to measure poverty in the Palestinian territories. To answer the research question, the second section will highlight the study area of Palestine and point out its specifics, particularly in relation to poverty. Theoretical concepts and measurement methods are then presented (Section 3), which form the basis for approaches that the author believes best measure the situation in the Palestinian territories. After discussing the possibilities and limitations of the chosen measurement method (Section 4), a conclusion (Section 5) rounds off the work and summarizes the main findings.