Integrated Poverty Impact Analysis (IPIA): A New Methodology for IKS–Based Integration Models

In this Chapter, an advanced statistical Integrated Poverty Impact Analysis Model (IPIA) is presented for the evidence-based analysis of the impact of development policies and projects on indigenous communities, with special attention for the poor. The underlying Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Development (IKS&D)-oriented research provides the basis for an objective explanation and prediction of the consumption behaviour of goods and services among poverty groups of the target population under impacting conditions of outside interventions. Embarking on conventional, less objective, economic, environmental and social impact assessment methodologies, this integrated poverty impact analysis focuses on the development of a standardised and independent approach on impacts across disciplinary perspectives and sectoral interests, with special attention given to the emic dimension of development, indispensable for the implementation of integrated IMM and ICMD programmes. Following a review of the conventional impact assessment approaches, the objective of the IPIA model is presented as the development of an evidence-based analysis of impacts on the basis of the execution of a sequence of complementary research and advanced analytic methodologies focused on the micro-level of institutions, households and individuals in local communities. In this way, the Integrated Poverty Impact Analysis (IPIA) is aiming at the explanation and prediction of consumer behaviour of the poor expressed in their differential consumption patterns of goods and services, representing possible changes in their well-being in a comparison between retrospective and prospective—i.e. ex ante—studies of poverty groups under external impacts of policy planning and implementation in the community.