How Different Approaches Shape our Understanding of the Poor

Description:
Documenting Poverty in the Balkans / This is a summary of five reports, commissioned by Sida to describe and discuss what is known and what is not about the situation of poor groups of people in Southeastern Europe. The studies concern Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia and Serbia & Montenegro.
The method used in these reports has been to examine the information that key documents in development cooperation provide concerning poor women and men, youth and children living in Southeastern Europe, and to determine what gaps there are on the subject. To gain a complementary understanding, a series of in-depth interviews have also been carried out with poor women and men in Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. These interviews help us to explore how different approaches shape our understanding of the multidimensionality of poverty. The intention has been both to summarise current information and to question its nature.
The Division for South Eastern Europe is happy to present the final report, which has been carried out by a team of two consultants from Opto International AB.