Growth, Income Distribution and Poverty: The Experience of Côte d'Ivoire from 1985 to 2002

The aim of this study was to demonstrate the importance of analysing the relationship between growth, income distribution and poverty in Côte d’Ivoire. The study was based on the multilateral comparison method used to measure the effects of growth and inequality on the poverty dynamics. The data used were taken from the Côte d’Ivoire Living Standard Survey (CILSS) carried out by the National Institute of Statistics (INS); they were collected from households in 1985, 1993, 1995, 1998 and 2002. The study assumed that the survey data were comparable. As a first step we followed the procedure used by Kakwani (1997), which involved measuring the effects of growth and inequality on poverty on the basis of multilateral comparison. As a second step, we used the approach of Duclos (2002) to measure the growth–poverty elasticity and the poverty–inequality elasticity. The results showed that inequality was the key factor in the poverty evolution of Côte d’Ivoire. They further showed that this evolution was not linked to a demographic phenomenon, but rather to intra-group poverty and an unequal distribution of income within these groups.