| Description |
The Maldives Vulnerability and Poverty Assessment (VPA) report introduces the Human Vulnerability Index, a new, broad-based measure of development, poverty, deprivation and vulnerability.
The results described in this report are based largely on original data collected through an extensive survey which covered all 200 inhabited administrative islands in Maldives2. On each island, some basic characteristics of all households were listed. Subsequently, a number of households were selected for in-depth interviews.
In addition to the household interviews, an island questionnaire was also completed for each island. This questionnaire contained information on physical infrastructure, availability of social services, economic resources and the main problems experienced in the previous three years. Most of this information was provided by the office of the Island Chief.
The quantitative and qualitative information contained in the household and island questionnaires forms the basis for the statistical analysis carried out in this report. In addition, the heads of the households enumerated and their spouses, and members of Island Development Committee and Island Women’s Committee on each island were asked to indicate which of the 15 problems described on a list were most important and to rank them all in order of importance. This ranking provides insights into the relative importance of the problems faced by the island communities, viewed from their own particular perspective. These rankings are used as weights in the aggregation of the survey results. |
