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Abstract
This paper presents q-squared research into chronic
poverty in rural Uganda. This research was undertaken
in 2002 with the Chronic Poverty Research Centre. Three
of nine sites were selected where an in-depth household
survey had been recently undertaken by LADDER. Analysis
of the household survey provided an understanding of
assets, livelihood portfolios, basic demographics, key
shocks and responses to shocks and patterns of change
over the five years preceding the LADDER household survey.
A mixed tool box of life histories, focus group discussions
and key informant interviews was developed in order
to generate evidence and analysis to help explain differential
poverty trajectories (between study sites, cohorts and
individual households) and to identify a range of explanatory
variables for differential well-being outcomes.
The paper shows that q-squared methods
provide rich and robust data, which can be presented
in a way that is of interest to a wide range of audiences.
However, we face challenges as researchers when trying
to feed research results into policy processes. These
challenges partly relate to the political economy in
many low-income developing countries, which mean that
issues of interest to the poor and the chronically poor
are unlikely to get onto policy agendas. The paper outlines
the barriers to pro-poor policy making.
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