ICIMOD’s Poverty and Vulnerability Assessment (PVA) is a household survey tool designed to
capture key elements of poverty, vulnerability, and adaptive capacity in mountain contexts for
the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region. The PVA combines general predictors of poverty
with indicators that are particularly relevant in mountain contexts, where factors such as
physical accessibility and a lack of access to basic facilities often exacerbate poverty and
vulnerability to stresses such as those related to climate variability and change. The inclusion
of indicators of adaptive capacity acknowledges that, while mountain households in the HKH
region may experience poverty and vulnerability, the communities they represent are also
repositories of experience and knowledge that can help people cope with stress and adapt to
change.
The PVA decomposes vulnerability into the dimensions of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive
capacity, each of which is represented by a number of sub-dimensions. Each sub-dimension
is represented by a number of indicators. The PVA has been applied to more than 13,000
households across the HKH region – in Bhutan, India, Nepal and Pakistan – in order to
identify particularly vulnerable communities and to develop a better understanding of the
drivers of poverty and vulnerability in different mountain communities.