Bar­ba­dos has launched a Coun­try As­sess­ment of Liv­ing Con­di­tions (CALC) 2024  that will be un­der­tak­en over the next six months aimed at pro­vid­ing the is­land’s true pover­ty line.

Min­is­ter of Peo­ple Em­pow­er­ment and El­der Af­fairs, Kirk Humphrey, speak­ing at the launch, said the re­sults of the sur­vey should be known by Jan­u­ary 2025.

He said that the CALC project will em­pow­er lives and the na­tion as a whole and that it is es­sen­tial to un­der­stand or­di­nary peo­ple and or­di­nary liv­ing in the coun­try while al­so urg­ing Bar­ba­di­ans to par­tic­i­pate in the study to be rolled out in Ju­ly, by the CALC Na­tion­al As­sess­ment Team.

He said that such a study need­ed to be done more fre­quent­ly, as the “spaces in be­tween stud­ies” have “been too long”, lament­ing that da­ta is of­ten un­avail­able in Bar­ba­dos and the re­gion.

“Caribbean coun­tries have a his­to­ry and a very un­for­tu­nate record of not hav­ing ad­e­quate da­ta. There is a dearth of im­por­tant in­for­ma­tion on a lot of im­por­tant top­ics, and there­fore de­ci­sions can’t be made. And then when we’re be­ing as­sessed, we as­sess on the in­for­ma­tion that peo­ple do not have,” Humphrey said.

The last sur­vey of liv­ing con­di­tions was done in 2016 and Humphrey said ‘We do not know what it will tell us now, but we do know that we need to know so that we can make in­formed de­ci­sions.

“I al­so must say to you that in the in­ter­ven­ing years, I have had some con­cerns that, while per­haps we pur­sue the in­for­ma­tion, a lot of the da­ta that should be used to make de­ci­sions are not used to make de­ci­sions. Caribbean gov­ern­ments are very good at col­lect­ing in­for­ma­tion some­times, and not do­ing any­thing with it.”

Humphrey sought to give the as­sur­ance that the in­for­ma­tion from CALC 2024, would not be “stored on a shelf to gath­er dust” but would be used to make se­ri­ous de­ci­sions go­ing for­ward.

“I al­so hold the view, hav­ing said that we have to do that, it can­not be a kind of made-up con­jec­ture, gut feel­ing, in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the re­al­i­ty. We need sci­en­tif­ic, ev­i­dence-based in­ter­pre­ta­tions of peo­ple’s re­al­i­ties and to be able to ex­press that as a true rep­re­sen­ta­tion of what it is that peo­ple are deal­ing with in this coun­try.”

Thir­ty-five enu­mer­a­tors will be con­duct­ing the sur­vey across Bar­ba­dos, which will help the gov­ern­ment as­sess the liv­ing con­di­tions of its peo­ple and come up with a pover­ty line by next year.

The Coun­try As­sess­ment of Liv­ing Con­di­tions 2024 will tar­get an es­ti­mat­ed 2,800 house­holds. It is ex­pect­ed to help the gov­ern­ment de­ter­mine the min­i­mum in­come a house­hold needs to meet its ba­sic con­sump­tion and non-con­sump­tion needs and un­der­stand the dy­nam­ic link be­tween poor liv­ing con­di­tions and ed­u­ca­tion, health, house­hold size, and em­ploy­ment.

It will al­so en­cap­su­late the voic­es of cit­i­zens and take on board their rec­om­men­da­tions to im­prove liv­ing con­di­tions and al­low Bar­ba­dos to track progress to­wards na­tion­al-lev­el goals and in­ter­na­tion­al so­cial de­vel­op­ment agree­ments, such as the Unit­ed Na­tions Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals.

CALC 2024 is be­ing un­der­tak­en with tech­ni­cal as­sis­tance from the Bar­ba­dos-based Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank (CDB) and the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB).

It com­pris­es four ma­jor com­po­nents – the Par­tic­i­pa­to­ry Pover­ty As­sess­ment; the Sur­vey of Liv­ing Con­di­tions; the In­sti­tu­tion­al As­sess­ment; and the Macro-Eco­nom­ic and So­cial As­sess­ment.

BRIDGETOWN, Bar­ba­dos, Jun 12, CMC

CMC/af/ir/2024