Poverty in Africa

Africa is a land of contrasts where poverty and plenty co-exist. The continent is endowed with untapped natural resources, a conducive climate, and a burgeoning youth population. However, it remains home to a very large poor population. This chapter reviews the situation and drivers of poverty in Africa by using a number of approaches: a systematic literature review, a comparative analysis, and examining various case studies. The review indicates that there is poor economic performance and there is dire poverty measured by both the unidimensional and multidimensional poverty indices on the continent. Only Mauritius has a high level on the human development index while the rest of the countries stand at the medium and low levels of the human development index. The unidimensional poverty measure shows that 82.3 percent of South Sudan’s population is living below the poverty line while only 4.8 percent of Morocco’s population is poor. Similar figures are obtained from the multidimensional poverty index (MPI) measures. MPI is 0.003 for Seychelles and Tunisia and as high as 0.59 for Niger. Further, the study also shows that drivers of poverty in Africa go beyond socioeconomic, political, and institutional factors. Non-material elements like culture, social capital, and spiritual richness also determine the level of happiness in society.