Multimodal poverty mapping and geographic transfer allocation

Woojin Jung, Andrew Kim, Arunesh Sinha, Quentin Stoeffler, Saeed Ghadimi, Vatsal Shah, Krittika Garg and Tawfiq Ammari
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Woojin Jung: RU - Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey [New Brunswick] - Rutgers - Rutgers University System
Andrew Kim: RU - Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey [New Brunswick] - Rutgers - Rutgers University System
Arunesh Sinha: RU - Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey [New Brunswick] - Rutgers - Rutgers University System
Saeed Ghadimi: University of Waterloo [Waterloo]
Vatsal Shah: RU - Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey [New Brunswick] - Rutgers - Rutgers University System
Krittika Garg: NYU - New York University [New York] - NYU - NYU System
Tawfiq Ammari: RU - Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey [New Brunswick] - Rutgers - Rutgers University System

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Abstract: Governments in developing countries deliver social assistance to millions each year, but often fail to reach the poorest households due to limited data and ineffective geographic targeting. We address this issue using beneficiary data from Zambia and apply outputs to optimize resource allocation. We combine multiple data sources at optimal spatial scales for predicting poverty and reallocating transfers. Comparing Unimodal, Multimodal, and Stacked Multimodal approaches, we achieve an of 0.801 and generate a high-resolution 1km poverty map to estimate ward-level wealth. Simulating reallocation to the most deprived areas yields a 30% greater poverty severity reduction than current practice. Yet, without full household-level data, poverty-focused optimization creates skewed aid distribution under uncertainty. We present egalitarian methods such as "min–max (water-filling)" optimization to balance coverage while targeting severe poverty. Given the weak alignment between current aid distribution and poverty, our study provides a framework for both evaluating and improving targeting.

Keywords: Poverty; Targeting; Multimodal; Transfer; Optimization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-03
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Published in Sustainable Cities and Society, In press, pp.107248. ⟨10.1016/j.scs.2026.107248⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05546879

DOI: 10.1016/j.scs.2026.107248

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