ECONOMIC GROWTH AND POVERTY IN AFRICA

Abstract

Poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon which, in addition to insufficient income to meet basic needs, also includes aspects related to human rights, such as lack of employment, inadequate housing and inadequate access to social protection, health, and education. The aim of the research is to provide an overview of poverty measures, poverty in Africa and to explore the existence of a statistically significant relationship between the rate of economic growth and poverty in Africa. The data for 34 African countries from 1985 to 2020 is analysed using panel data methods. The median country in the sample has both seen a growing GDP and lowering of poverty levels. While the regressions results show a negative correlation of GDP growth with poverty measures, the results are not statistically significantly different from zero. Unexpectedly and interestingly, however, I find that population growth, controlling for GDP growth, increases the poverty measure. Therefore, leading me to conclude that perhaps the population “channel” is more important than the growth “channel”.