Understanding and Reducing Persistent Poverty in Africa

Understanding and Reducing Persistent Poverty in Africa PDF Author: Christopher B. Barrett
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317997476
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
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.

Understanding and Reducing Persistent Poverty in Africa

Understanding and Reducing Persistent Poverty in Africa PDF Author: Christopher B. Barrett
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317997476
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 217

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

Understanding and Reducing Persistent Poverty in Africa

Understanding and Reducing Persistent Poverty in Africa PDF Author: Christopher B. Barrett
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
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.

Understanding and Reducing Persistent Poverty in Africa

Understanding and Reducing Persistent Poverty in Africa PDF Author: Christopher B. Barrett
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317997468
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
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.

Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa

Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa PDF Author: Andrew McKay
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191044121
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
After many years of disappointing performance, Sub-Saharan Africa has shown impressive growth performance since the start of the millenium. However, the impact of this on poverty reduction is still not well understood and this led the African Economics Research Consortium in Nairobi to undertake a major collaborative research project on the linkages between growth and poverty reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa. This volume is based on research undertaken by world leading researchers on major issues influencing the extent to which growth can translate into poverty reduction. The volume includes two review chapters on the impact of growth on poverty reduction, and on the impact of widespread poverty on economic growth, and argues that both relationships are important for understanding how growth and poverty reduction interact. The volume focuses, in detail, on the role of agriculture, the labour market, the informal sector, the industrial sector, the global context, and macroeconomic issues. All chapters comprise an extensive review of the existing literature and highlight new and important directions. As more information on the evolution of poverty and living conditions in Sub-Saharan Africa emerge, this volume is important in helping to interpret and explain that evidence.

Poverty Measurement Blues

Poverty Measurement Blues PDF Author: Andries du Toit
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 18

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Book Description
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.

Understanding Poverty in Africa?

Understanding Poverty in Africa? PDF Author: Mats Hårsmar
Publisher: Nordic Africa Institute
ISBN: 9789171066688
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 58

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Book Description
In any international comparison, sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the most pervasive poverty. The study of African societies requires the study of numerous dynamics, processes and situations with links to poverty issues. Recent methodological innovations hold that research into poverty should be multidimensional, dynamic and cross-disciplinary. But how can such research be undertaken? This volume comprises two separate articles. The first provides an overview of major conceptual positions on poverty. With the focus on theoretical and methodological issues, it argues that the epistemological and normative elements have not been sufficiently emphasised in the attempts to bring different disciplinary approaches together. Such elements constitute fundamental dividing lines in the poverty debate. However, the article goes on to argue that the capability approach has promising potential for bridging these divides. The second article is an empirical study of recent poverty developments in Tanzania and Burkina Faso. Common to both countries - one in East and the other in West Africa - is that a largely subsistence agricultural sector dominates their economies. The article combines quantitative and qualitative methods to show that regional differences in the structures of agricultural production may in large part explain variations in poverty.

Poverty Reduction in the Course of African Development

Poverty Reduction in the Course of African Development PDF Author: Machiko Nissanke
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192518364
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
In light of the opportunities and the challenges facing African economies in the 21st century, this edited volume traces the evolution of poverty in the course of economic development in sub-Saharan Africa over the recent decades. By engaging with, and seeking to develop on, the work of Professor Erik Thorbecke, it examines the evolving dynamics of poverty in multiple dimensions. It also discusses how to lay down foundations for improved governance and institutions that will realize inclusive development in sub-Saharan Africa. Thus, the volume contributes to our understanding of dynamics of pro-poor growth and pro-growth poverty reduction, and to the on-going policy and academic debates on how to overcome fragility and vulnerability and secure inclusive development through socio-economic transformation in sub-Saharan Africa. The volume is divided into four parts; two overview chapters in Part 1 set out a common theme running through the volume. Four chapters in Part II examine an evolution of the poverty profile in different dimensions in sub-Saharan Africa since the new millennium. Part III presents three country case studies of tracing poverty dynamics under a country-specific institutional and policy environment. Part IV consists of three chapters, each of which addresses the question of how to advance an inclusive development agenda in sub-Saharan Africa, but from three different perspectives: structural changes, a governance framework, and an institutional foundation.

The Development of Africa

The Development of Africa PDF Author: Olayinka Akanle
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319662422
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 420

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Book Description
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.

The Economics of Poverty Traps

The Economics of Poverty Traps PDF Author: Christopher B. Barrett
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022657430X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 425

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Book Description
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.

Empirical Analysis of Poverty Dynamics

Empirical Analysis of Poverty Dynamics PDF Author: Isabel Günther
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 174

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Book Description
The empirical analysis of poverty over time is still severely constrained by the available survey data in developing countries. In the past, this has led to a neglect of certain aspects of poverty dynamics or even biased assessments of poverty dynamics. This book explicitly takes into account the present data limitations, proposing alternative methods for the empirical analysis of poverty dynamics. The work addresses both the problems related to limited data in the analysis of macro-level (or national) as well as micro-level (or household) poverty dynamics. The proposed methods are applied to survey data from various sub-Saharan African countries. As these countries do not only have the most limited economic survey data but also show the highest poverty rates in the world an accurate understanding of the underlying poverty dynamics seems to be most important for these countries.