Kathleen Beegle

Luc Christiaensen

Sub-Saharan Africa's turnaround over the past couple of decades has been dramatic. After many years in decline, the continent's economy picked up in the mid-1990s. Along with this macroeconomic growth, people became healthier, many more youngsters attended schools, and the rate of extreme poverty declined from 54 percent in 1990 to 41 percent in 2015. Political and social freedoms expanded, and gender equality advanced. Conflict in the region also subsided, although it still claims thousands of civilian lives in some countries and still drives pressing numbers of displaced persons. Despite Africa’s widespread economic and social welfare accomplishments, the region’s challenges remain daunting: Economic growth has slowed in recent years. Poverty rates in many countries are the highest in the world. And notably, the number of poor in Africa is rising because of population growth. From a global perspective, the biggest concentration of poverty has shifted from South Asia to Africa. Accelerating Poverty Reduction in Africa explores critical policy entry points to address the demographic, societal, and political drivers of poverty; improve income-earning opportunities both on and off the farm; and better mobilize resources for the poor. It looks beyond macroeconomic stability and growth—critical yet insufficient components of these objectives—to ask what more could be done and where policy makers should focus their attention to speed up poverty reduction. The pro-poor policy agenda advanced in this volume requires not only economic growth where the poor work and live, but also mitigation of the many risks to which African households are exposed. As such, this report takes a "jobs" lens to its task. It focuses squarely on the productivity and livelihoods of the poor and vulnerable—that is, what it will take to increase their earnings. Finally, it presents a road map for financing the poverty and development agenda.

Accelerating Poverty Reduction in Africa

Isis Gaddis

Andrew Dabalen

L’idée que l’on se fait de l’Afrique a radicalement changé. Encore considéré comme le continent des guerres, des famines et de la pauvreté chronique à la fin des années 90, le continent africain est maintenant évoqué sous l’angle de « l’Afrique qui monte » et du « XXIe siècle africain ». Deux décennies de croissance économique sans précédent devaient en principe améliorer sensiblement le bien-être des populations africaines. Il est toutefois difficile de dire si c’est effectivement le cas en raison de la médiocre qualité des données, de la nature du processus de croissance (s’agissant notamment du rôle des ressources naturelles), des conflits qui sévissent dans une partie la région et de la forte expansion démographique. Poverty in a Rising Africa décrit les problèmes de données et analyse systématiquement les informations disponibles sur la pauvreté et les inégalités dans une perspective tant monétaire que non monétaire. Le premier chapitre évalue la disponibilité et la qualité des données nécessaires pour cerner la pauvreté monétaire, examine les mécanismes de gouvernance et les processus politiques qui sous-tendent la production statistique et propose quelques méthodes pour combler le déficit de données. Le chapitre 2 évalue la robustesse des estimations sur la pauvreté en Afrique et brosse à grands traits le profil de ce fléau. Selon les auteurs, la réduction de la pauvreté en Afrique est peut-être légèrement supérieure à ce que les estimations traditionnelles portent à croire. Pour autant, même les estimations les plus optimistes indiquent que davantage de personnes vivaient dans la pauvreté en 2012 qu’en 1990. Le troisième chapitre considère la pauvreté dans une perspective élargie en prenant en compte les dimensions non monétaires du bien-être, telles que l’éducation, la santé et la liberté, en utilisant la méthode d’Amartya Sen (1985) axée sur les notions de capabilities et de functionings. Des progrès ont certes été accomplis dans plusieurs de ces domaines, mais les niveaux de résultats restent obstinément bas. Enfin, le chapitre 4 examine les données relatives aux inégalités en Afrique en analysant non seulement les types d’inégalités monétaires, mais aussi d’autres aspects tels que l’inégalité des chances, la mobilité intergénérationnelle dans le travail et l’éducation et l’extrême richesse.

La pauvreté dans une Afrique en essor

Perceptions of Africa have changed dramatically. Viewed as a continent of wars, famines and entrenched poverty in the late 1990s, there is now a focus on “Africa rising†? and an “African 21st century.†? Two decades of unprecedented economic growth in Africa should have brought substantial improvements in well-being. Whether or not they did, remains unclear given the poor quality of the data, the nature of the growth process (especially the role of natural resources), conflicts that affect part of the region, and high population growth. Poverty in a Rising Africa documents the data challenges and systematically reviews the evidence on poverty from monetary and nonmonetary perspectives, as well as a focus on dimensions of inequality. Chapter 1 maps out the availability and quality of the data needed to track monetary poverty, reflects on the governance and political processes that underpin the current situation with respect to data production, and describes some approaches to addressing the data gaps. Chapter 2 evaluates the robustness of the estimates of poverty in Africa. It concludes that poverty reduction in Africa may be slightly greater than traditional estimates suggest, although even the most optimistic estimates of poverty reduction imply that more people lived in poverty in 2012 than in 1990. A broad-stroke profile of poverty and trends in poverty in the region is presented. Chapter 3 broadens the view of poverty by considering nonmonetary dimensions of well-being, such as education, health, and freedom, using Sen's (1985) capabilities and functioning approach. While progress has been made in a number of these areas, levels remain stubbornly low. Chapter 4 reviews the evidence on inequality in Africa. It looks not only at patterns of monetary inequality in Africa but also other dimensions, including inequality of opportunity, intergenerational mobility in occupation and education, and extreme wealth in Africa.

Luc Christiaensen

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