Administrative divisions of Kampala district The poorest of the poor children combining 8 out of 14 poverty criteria, Kampala District Selected lists of respondents for some sub-tasks Institutions met for the targeting plan Research instruments for some sub-tasks The children in abject poverty concept and relationship of variables Visualizing the depth of poverty of children in abject poverty Sample databank view showing form to collect household information Sample databank view showing activated control for identification particulars Sample databank view showing reports generating form Sample databank view showing specific child characteristics Household characteristics Welfare characteristics Schooling status for the poorest children in three districts Understanding targeting within the framework of a conducive institutional setting Proportion of children living in abject poverty by rural-urban residence Poverty-grading matrices for identifying poverty Case study of the abject poor among school children Characteristics of child poverty in key domains Summary of findings from the census on children in abject poverty General household-related characteristics in percentages Specific child-related characteristics The test on whether the child possesses a blanket and at least a set of clothes Case study of the abject poor in-school children, Ttula Primary School Categories of vulnerability and children in abject poverty Plan for targeting out-of-school children Children are subsumed within the poverty categories most often referred to such as households, communi- ties, people β which means that there is a high tendency to focus on adult-related poverty while child poverty is ignored, partly because children have little power and influence within a group that contains adults.
Interventions such as universal primary education UPE face monumen- tal challenges reaching children in abject poverty. The study on children had four related, specific objectives: 1 To establish criteria for identifying and monitoring children in abject poverty in Uganda. The study benefited from a combination of methodologies. For Objective 1, for example, participatory and quantitative survey methods were used. This saw the extensive review of lit- erature that culminated in a draft set of criteria that could be ranked by importance.
Since this was more of action than basic research, a more flexible but iterative study design and process was preferred because we were keen to learn from both the process and substance-related as- pects of the research. The hope was that, in future, research work on children in abject poverty would benefit from the insights provided by this study. Findings reflect that children in abject poverty can be recognized by rather elementary as opposed to sophisticated criteria. Top on the list is absence of basic necessities such as shelter, food, clothing and water.
Schooling is high on the list as a critical criterion in determining who is extremely or modestly a poor child. There are a few issues that should be noted: This study supports the view that the indicators be analysed within the framework of PEAP since it is within this framework that government policy, budgetary and institu- tional support is provided.
While there seems to be national consensus among donors, the public sector and civil society that the government has made commendable progress in implementing PEAP as flexibly as possible, its evolving nature, due to the participatory and consultative reviews it undergoes regularly, does not address many of the development challenges poor children face today.
