Acknowledgement This report has developed as a collaborative process that has benefited from the skill, energy and commitment, including those directly in its production and many others who have generously offered their time to comment and contribute at various stages. This paper has grown out of previous independent work by the authors on the same subject, and represents a liberate effort to arrive at a common set of benchmark estimates of poverty in Lao PDR during the 90’s. The need for such a benchmark arose in the context of the National Statistical Center (NSC) initiative on monitoring poverty in the country. The NSC express its gratitude to Sida, World Bank, Asian Development Bank and Statistics Sweden for their assistance to undertake the present work and to build up the NSC staffs’ capacity on poverty analysis. The NSC would like to express sincere thank the World Bank for supporting the printing of this publication. Vientiane, 2002 National Statistical Center