Upon the request of our EU partners, and in line with the dynamics defined by the joint negotiation position for Chapter 18: Statistics, Statistical Office is obliged to introduce the EU methodology for monitoring the poverty, and in the same time to leave the World Bank methodology for the calculation of absolute poverty line we used until 2014.

 

Having in mind the complexity of survey, EC – Eurostat provided an expert assistance to Statistical Office via IPA project, and activities on the implementation of the EU SILC (EU statistics on income and living conditions) have started in 2013, enabling more comprehensive measurement of poverty in comparison with the World Bank methodology. In this manner, the poverty is observed as a multidimensional phenomenon influenced, in addition by income for satisfying the main living needs, also by possibility for employment, housing conditions, access to social protection, and other aspects. Having in mind that this is a longitudinal survey (the same observation unit is monitored for several years) it implies that a certain number of respondents are asked on income and living conditions for a period of 4 years. The data obtained with regular annual dynamics were transmitted to Eurostat for the data validation, and due to dynamics of ending the IPA 2013 national project and final calculations necessary to be done with the assistance of EU experts, we plan to publish the data on poverty until the end of 2017.