Poverty: A Review and Analysis of Its Theoretical Conceptions and Measurements
Samuel A. Botchway

Abstract
Poverty is an undesirable and intolerable state of affairs which is considered as a social, economic, political or psychological problem. The word suggests that individuals or groups who are in poverty have to be helped to change their conditions. The reduction or eradication (if possible) of this poverty problem has now become the primary focus of the socio-economic development polices of developing world governments. There is therefore the need to have a yardstick to identify the poor, tools to measure the depth of their poverty which will then assist policy makers to assess their policy impact. This paper which forms part of a literature search and review of poverty for the author’s PhD Thesis attempts to do just that. It first puts poverty in context and considers it as the absence of well-being. It explains the phenomenon and thereafter provides analysis of a wide range of measurements both qualitative and quantitative. How to use these measurements are then explained.

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