Download or read book Understanding and Reducing Persistent Poverty in Africa written by Christopher B. Barrett and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-21 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prior work has shown that there is a significant amount of turnover amongst the African poor as households exit and enter poverty. Some of this mobility can be attributed to regular movement back and forth in response to exogenous variability in climate, prices, health, etc. ('churning'). Other crossings of the poverty line reflect permanent shifts in long-term well-being associated with gains or losses of productive assets or permanent changes in asset productivity due, for example, to adoption of improved technologies or access to new, higher-value markets. Distinguishing true structural mobility from simple churning is important because it clarifies the factors that facilitate such important structural change. Conversely, it also helps identify the constraints that may leave other households caught in a trap of persistent, structural poverty. The papers in this book help to distinguish the types of poverty and to deepen understanding of the structural features and constraints that create poverty traps. Such an understanding allows communities, local governments and donors to take proactive, effective steps to combat persistent poverty in Africa. This book was previously published as a special issue of the Journal of Development Studies.

Download or read book Understanding and Reducing Persistent Poverty in Africa written by Christopher B. Barrett and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: His paper introduces a special issue exploring persistent poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. As a set, these papers break new ground in exploring the dynamics of structural poverty, integrating qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis and adopting an asset-based approach to the study of changes in well-being, especially in response to a wide range of different (climatic, health, political, and other) shocks. In this introductory essay, we frame these studies, building directly on evolving conceptualisations of poverty in Africa.

Download or read book Poverty Reduction Strategies in Africa written by Mike O. Odey and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-08 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fundamental question about contemporary Africa is why does Africa remain so poor, long after the departure of the European Colonial domination and in the midst of so many natural resources? Poverty Reduction Strategies in Africa provides new understandings of the persistent issue of poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa and makes recommendations for policy frameworks to help African governments alleviate poverty. Each chapters uses case studies to review the old strategies for resolving the problem of poverty in the continent and make the case for new initiatives to address poverty. The contributors focus on practical and day-to-day issues as the best approach to formulate and implement poverty reduction strategies in contemporary Africa. This book is invaluable reading for students and scholars of African politics and development.

Download or read book Accelerating Poverty Reduction in Africa written by Kathleen Beegle and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2019-10-09 with total page 451 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Poverty in a Rising Africa written by Kathleen Beegle and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2016-03-10 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Reducing Poverty and Investing in People written by Victoria Monchuk and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2014-02-19 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For two decades, Africas strong economic growth has paved the way for poverty reduction. Nevertheless, high chronic poverty levels persist, and the gap between income groups in terms of human capital and access to basic services is growing. Also, poor households are vulnerable to frequent shocks. By providing regular, reliable support to poor households and helping them invest in productive activities, targeted interventions such as safety nets help reduce persistent poverty, reverse the trend of increasing inequality, and build household resilience. Until recently, safety nets were implemented only on an ad hoc basis in Africa. However, in the wake of the global economic crisis, policy makers are increasingly viewing safety nets as core instruments for reducing poverty and managing risk. Also a momentum toward rationalizing public spending to provide more adequate and targeted support to the poorest is emerging in response to growing evidence that safety nets can successfully reduce poverty and vulnerability and promote inclusive growth. This book assesses the status and analyzes the objectives, features, systems, performance, and financing of safety nets in 22 African countries. It then identifies how governments and donors can strengthen safety net systems and protect and promote poor and vulnerable people. Overall, the book finds that safety nets are on the rise in Africa and are beginning to evolve from fragmented stand-alone programs into integrated systems. Social protection programming has started to change from largely emergency food aid programs to regular, predictable safety nets including targeted cash transfers and cash-for-work programs. Some countries, including Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, and Tanzania, are working toward consolidating their programs into a national system. Impact evaluations of safety nets in Africa are also increasingly being undertaken and, with recent research into the productive aspects of cash transfer programs, have yielded encouraging evidence that safety nets reduce poverty and vulnerability. The timely analysis of safety nets in Africa provides a solid foundation for evidence-based policy dialogue and programming. As a result of the growing body of evidence that safety nets contribute to inclusive growth, African decision makers are now putting safety nets high on their development agendas.

Download or read book The Economics of Poverty Traps written by Christopher B. Barrett and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-12-07 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What circumstances or behaviors turn poverty into a cycle that perpetuates across generations? The answer to this question carries especially important implications for the design and evaluation of policies and projects intended to reduce poverty. Yet a major challenge analysts and policymakers face in understanding poverty traps is the sheer number of mechanisms—not just financial, but also environmental, physical, and psychological—that may contribute to the persistence of poverty all over the world. The research in this volume explores the hypothesis that poverty is self-reinforcing because the equilibrium behaviors of the poor perpetuate low standards of living. Contributions explore the dynamic, complex processes by which households accumulate assets and increase their productivity and earnings potential, as well as the conditions under which some individuals, groups, and economies struggle to escape poverty. Investigating the full range of phenomena that combine to generate poverty traps—gleaned from behavioral, health, and resource economics as well as the sociology, psychology, and environmental literatures—chapters in this volume also present new evidence that highlights both the insights and the limits of a poverty trap lens. The framework introduced in this volume provides a robust platform for studying well-being dynamics in developing economies.

Download or read book Poverty Measurement Blues written by Andries du Toit and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 18 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper explores the challenge of understanding chronic and structural poverty in South Africa, and questions the dominance of the econometric imaginary in present-day development and poverty studies. It argues that measurement-based, econometric approaches to chronic poverty are dependent upon mystifying narratives about the nature of poverty and how it can be known, that they direct attention away from the underlying structural dimensions of persistent poverty and that understanding structural poverty in turn requires a theorised engagement with the complexities of social relations, agency, culture and subjectivity. Valuable as the recent re-recognition of the need to connect qualitative and quantitative research has been, attempts at 'qual-quant' integration often remain tied to positivist assumptions, bringing the risk of a new 'ordering' of methodological dissent that leaves problematic aspects of the econometric imaginary unchanged. Underlying this process is the entanglement of poverty research with the 'government of poverty': the attempt to constitute poverty as something objectively measurable and scientifically managable. The paper closes with a consideration of the ethical and political challenges this poses for critical researchers and intellectuals in post-colonial contexts.

Download or read book Income Inequality Trends in Sub Saharan Africa written by Ayodele F. Odusola and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Development of Africa written by Olayinka Akanle and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-10-25 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume analyses many of the real development challenges confronting the African continent, presenting fresh and current objective examinations, narratives, interpretations and pathways to the continent’s development. It interrogates and answers established, critical, current and pragmatic problems confronting Africa today, and provides workable pathways out of the development problems, so that scholarship, policy and practice will be positively impacted. This volume adds great depth and extended breadth to the knowledge base on development of Africa. It provides excellent resources for academics, scholars, student, policy makers and all those interested in issues affecting Africa’s development.

Download or read book Chronic Poverty written by A. Shepherd and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-05-30 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on a decade of research by the Chronic Poverty Research Centre, this volume includes material on inter-generational transmission, the importance of assets and vulnerability, and conflict, and new thinking about the close relationship between social exclusion and adverse incorporation.

Download or read book Reducing Global Poverty written by Caroline O.N. Moser and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2008-06-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A daunting challenge to the international community is how to go about lifting the world's huge poor population out of poverty. "Asset-based" approaches to development are aimed specifically at designing and implementing public policies that will increase the capital assets of the poor—i.e., the physical, financial, human, social, and natural resources that can be acquired, developed, improved, and transferred across generations. In this pathbreaking book, Caroline Moser and a group of experts with on-the-ground experience provide a set of case studies of asset-building projects around the globe. The authors use a cutting-edge research framework that moves beyond quick snapshot solutions to the problem of poverty. They highlight the ways in which poor households and communities can move out of poverty through longer-term accumulation of capital assets. Contributors include Michael Carter (University of Wisconsin), Monique Cohen (Microfinance Opportunities), Sarah Cook (Institute of Development Studies, Sussex), Hector Cordero-Guzman (Baruch College, CUNY), Lilianne Fan (Oxfam, UK), Pablo Farias (Ford Foundation, New York), Clare Ferguson (formerly DFID), Andy Felton (FDIC), Sarah Gammage (Rutgers University), Anirudh Krishna (Duke University), Amy Liu (Brookings Institution), Vijay Mahajan (BASIX, India), Paula Nimpuno-Parente (Ford Foundation, South Africa), Manuel Orozco (Inter-American Dialogue),Victoria Quiroz-Becerra (Baruch College, CUNY), Dennis Rodgers (London School of Economics), and Andres Solimano (CEPAL, Santiago, Chile).

Download or read book Poverty Reduction Strategies in Africa written by Mike O. Odey and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-08 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fundamental question about contemporary Africa is why does Africa remain so poor, long after the departure of the European Colonial domination and in the midst of so many natural resources? Poverty Reduction Strategies in Africa provides new understandings of the persistent issue of poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa and makes recommendations for policy frameworks to help African governments alleviate poverty. Each chapters uses case studies to review the old strategies for resolving the problem of poverty in the continent and make the case for new initiatives to address poverty. The contributors focus on practical and day-to-day issues as the best approach to formulate and implement poverty reduction strategies in contemporary Africa. This book is invaluable reading for students and scholars of African politics and development.

Download or read book African Economic Development written by Steven Langdon and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-03-05 with total page 941 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sub-Saharan Africa is at a turning point. The barriers to economic growth seen in the 1980-2000 era are disappearing and new optimism is spreading. However, difficult goals of eliminating poverty, achieving equity and overcoming environmental threats continue. This much-needed and insightful textbook has been written to help us understand this combination of emerging improvements and significant challenges. Opening with an analysis of the main theories relating to development in Sub-Saharan Africa, the book explores all the key issues, including: Human development; Rapid urbanization; Structural and gender dimensions; Sustainable development and environmental issues; and Africa’s role in the world economy. The authors use economic tools and concepts throughout, in a way that makes them accessible to students without an economics background. Readers are also aided by a wide range of case studies, on-the-ground examples and statistical information, which provide a detailed analysis of each topic. This text is also accompanied by an e-resource, featuring additional sources for students and instructors. African Economic Development is a clear and comprehensive textbook suitable for courses on African economic development, development economics, African studies and development studies.

Download or read book Sociological Perspectives on Sustainable Development and Poverty Reduction in Rural Populations written by Semali, Ladislaus M. and published by IGI Global. This book was released on 2021-09-24 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Globally, poverty affects millions of people’s lives each day. Children are hungry, many lack the means to receive an education, and many are needlessly ill. It is a common scene to see an impoverished town surrounded by trash and polluted air. There is a need to debunk the myths surrounding the impoverished and for strategies to be crafted to aid their situations. Sociological Perspectives on Sustainable Development and Poverty Reduction in Rural Populations is an authored book that seeks to clarify the understanding of poverty reduction in a substantive way and demonstrate the ways that poverty is multifaceted and why studying poverty reduction matters. The 12 chapters in this volume contribute to existing and new areas of knowledge production in the field of development studies, poverty knowledge production, and gender issues in the contemporary African experience. The book utilizes unique examples drawn purposely from select African countries to define, highlight, raise awareness, and clarify the complexity of rural poverty. Covering topics such as indigenous knowledge, sustainable development, and child poverty, this book provides an indispensable resource for sociology students and professors, policymakers, social development officers, advocates for the impoverished, government officials, researchers, and academicians.

Download or read book Theological perspectives on re imagining leadership in post COVID 19 Africa written by Philip La G. du Toit and published by AOSIS. This book was released on 2023-11-30 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Post-coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) realities are challenging leaders in all spheres of society in many ways. From the onset of the pandemic, leaders on every level were challenged to provide appropriate guidance in the face of new and adverse realities. From the micro level of local congregations to the macro level of national governments, leaders were required to provide the type of leadership that would not only address immediate obstacles but simultaneously be visionary in the face of uncertainties that became the hallmark of post-COVID-19 society. In this book, the authors reflect on leadership in a post-COVID-19 society from bibliological, practical, theological, missiological and ethical perspectives. Although the authors have the global village in mind, the focus leans towards the African context. The book aims to contribute meaningfully to a much-needed and re-imagined vision of leaders which fits post-COVID-19 societies.

Download or read book Prosperity in Rural Africa written by Dan Brockington and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 461 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "What does it mean to say that rural areas of Africa are poor? Many people insist that in rural African countries areas poverty is prevalent. This is either because the smallholder agricultural practices are unproductive or it is because economic policies have not protected and promoted African farming. But whether this deprivation is the fault of the peasant, or the government, both sides agree on the facts of rural poverty. However in both cases rural poverty is described using measures which make it hard, if not impossible, to capture new forms of wealth that rural people may be accruing. These new forms of wealth, which largely comprise productive assets, are especially important because they feature so prominently in rural people's own definitions of wealth. Using an unprecedented collection of longitudinal surveys, in which experienced researchers have revisited villages which they have known for decades, we track surprising increases in assets in diverse locations in Tanzania. These findings the result is a compilation which is fascinating in itself and important far understanding of rural economies development data and agricultural policy"--