Resource information
The Palestinian Territories have a
uniquely fragmented geography, characterized by the
isolation of Gaza from the rest of the world, and the
man-made barriers to mobility within the West Bank. The
internal mobility restrictions imposed by Israel, unique to
the West Bank, play an important role in explaining spatial
variations in outcomes within the West Bank. This is
strikingly analogous to the role of Gaza's external
barriers in explaining the divergence between the West Bank
and Gaza. These have consequences for poverty and economic
development. Detailed analysis using a series of labor force
and household surveys were undertaken as part of the West
Bank and Gaza poverty and inclusion assessment, coping with
conflict? The analysis revealed that over the last decade,
internal and external barriers have been associated with
tremendous constraints to growth and investment, which is
evident in high rates of unemployment, especially in Gaza
and among women and youth. Poverty mapping relies on
household survey and census data, making the most of the
strengths of each, and compensating for their weaknesses.
Certain key data requirements must be fulfilled to be able
to construct a poverty map. Survey data must include
detailed consumption data, which is the basis for
calculating poverty estimates, for instance at the national
and the regional level. However, the survey usually covers
only a representative sample of the population. This
tradeoff between sample size and the cost and time needed to
collect quality consumption data implies that surveys cannot
typically be used to calculate reliable poverty estimates
for more disaggregated areas. This is because, at such lower
levels of disaggregation, for instance, the community or
village, the number of observations in the survey is too
small to produce statistically reliable estimates. The
census on the other hand covers the entire population and
can therefore be reliable even at lower levels of
aggregation. However, the census usually covers only basic
information like demographics, education and employment but
not detailed information on consumption.
