Increasingly national statistical agencies are being called upon to
provide high quality data on a regular basis, to be used by governments for evidencebased
policy development. Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) give impetus
to this, and bring a prerequisite for comprehensive ‘‘poverty diagnosis’’. Often the
data that are required are not available, or are incomplete while the concepts that are
to be used may be ambiguous or require adaptation to local conditions. The poverty
analysis of Lesotho in this article represents a contribution towards the emerging
culture of evidence-based policy-making in developing countries in that it explores
changes in key poverty-related social indicators. Techniques for dealing with poor
data are discussed and an approach to developing a poverty threshold adapted to the
local conditions of Lesotho is described.