What do the World Bank's poverty assessments teach us about poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa?

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dc.contributor.authorHanmer, L. C.en
dc.contributor.authorPyatt, G.en
dc.contributor.authorWhite, H.en
dc.contributor.departmentSustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management (SANREM) Knowledgebaseen
dc.coverage.spatialSub-Saharan Africaen
dc.date.accessioned2016-04-19T18:55:58Zen
dc.date.available2016-04-19T18:55:58Zen
dc.date.issued1999en
dc.descriptionMetadata only recorden
dc.description.abstractAs part of the World Bank's poverty reduction strategy, Poverty Assessments have been carried out for a number of countries which analyse who the poor are, the causes of poverty and poverty reduction policies. This article reviews what can be learnt from the twenty-five Assessments prepared for countries in sub-Saharan Africa up to 1996. Whilst other factors are acknowledged in identifying the poor, the Assessments over-emphasize income-poverty defined against an inevitably arbitrary poverty line. The Assessments are shown to be weak in addressing the causes of poverty, often ignoring the historical perspective, political context, and international dimensions such as debt and commodity price trends, focusing instead on the lack of growth in recent years as the main cause of poverty. Weak understanding of the causes of poverty undermines the basis for country-specific poverty reduction strategies: policy recommendations are usually an uncritical presentation of the World Bank's three-pronged strategy of growth, investment in human capital and social safety nets. Although the Assessments do not explicitly acknowledge the point, they suggest that the number of poor people in Africa will continue to rise; nor is there any basis for confidence that policies are being put in place to redress the situation.en
dc.format.mimetypetext/plainen
dc.identifier1327en
dc.identifier.citationDevelopment and Change 30(4): 795-823en
dc.identifier.issn0012-155Xen
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10919/66035en
dc.language.isoen_USen
dc.publisherOxford UK: Blackwell Publishersen
dc.rightsIn Copyrighten
dc.rights.holderCopyright 1999 Institute of Social Studiesen
dc.rights.urihttp://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/en
dc.subjectGovernment institutionsen
dc.subjectEconomic growthen
dc.subjectPovertyen
dc.subjectGovernmenten
dc.subjectGovernment policyen
dc.subjectWorld Banken
dc.subjectPoverty assessmentsen
dc.subjectSub-Saharan Africaen
dc.subjectGovernanceen
dc.titleWhat do the World Bank's poverty assessments teach us about poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa?en
dc.typeAbstracten
dc.type.dcmitypeTexten

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