From Africa
Renewal, Vol.20 #2 (July 2006), page 16
Combating
inequality in Africa
Lessen inequities to reduce poverty and reach MDGs, says UN
By Ernest Harsch
Workers in Burkina Faso are angry. Four times in 2005 and then again
this May, the country’s trade unions shut down economic activity
through a series of national general strikes. Thousands marched in the
streets of that West African nation to protest low salaries, high
prices, lost jobs and inadequate social benefits.
|
Barrientos, Armando. 2004
Cash
Transfers for Older People Reduce Poverty and Inequality.
The paper discusses the poverty and inequality reduction properties of
non-contributory pension in Brazil, South Africa and Bangladesh. It
examines the development of non-contributory pension programmes in the
countries involved, and the institutional factors behind their
extension and current sustainability. It also examines the incidence of
non-contributory pension programmes on poverty and inequality.
-
Ross, Michael. 2004.
Mineral
Wealth and Equitable Development.
In theory, new mineral wealth should offer governments a chance to
boost economic growth and reduce inequality. In practice, it often
leads to economic stagnation, civil conflict, and heightened
inequality. To avoid these problems, governments must navigate a
complex series of economic, social, and political challenges.
One of the most difficult challenges is deciding how to deal equitably
with the regional or local communities where the extraction occurs.
Both the central government and local communities typically claim
ownership of the resources, dispute the other side’s claims, and have
some ability to slow or block projects they dislike. Mineral firms are
often caught between the two sides. When these disputes can be
resolved, mineral development can proceed; when they cannot – as in
Bolivia, Sudan, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea – the result may be
political unrest and violent conflict.
This paper explores the problems and opportunities that governments,
firms, and local communities face when they must divide the costs and
benefits of a mineral development project. It makes four central
arguments:
-
Sabates-Wheeler, Rachel. 2005
Asset
Inequality and Agricultural Growth: How Are Patterns of Asset
Inequality Established and Reproduced?
The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between
distributions of asset inequality, how
these distributions are created and maintained, and agricultural
growth. We intend to investigate what
policies and institutions tend to promote equally shared growth. The
motivating question that guides our
study is: How does differential access to productive assets in the
agricultural sector, at various levels
(regional, community and household), effect inequalities in
agricultural outcomes in terms of productivity
and poverty? The dominant discourse on agricultural productivity and
distribution has been largely
technocratic, focusing on input-output relationships, defined and
measured with a yardstick specific to the
discipline of economics. We review certain strands of this literature
in depth. A less well-known strand
of literature emphasises the social and political constructions and
reproductions of a variety of
inequalities. While this is a relatively small literature we use it to
broaden our understanding of the
processes and institutions that link inequality and productivity.
Furthermore, we use Ethiopian
agriculture as a case study to highlight the persistent nature of
inequality as causally related to historical
choices and path dependency. Rather than unidirectional causalities,
what we observe is a complex
system whereby inequality affects growth which in turn reinforces
processes that exacerbate and
reproduce inequalities.
-
Shepherd, Andrew and E. Gyimah-Boadi, with Sulley Gariba, Sophie
Plagerson and Abdul Wahab Musa. 2004
Bridging
the North South Divide in Ghana.
The intractability of regional inequality in Ghana
Regional inequality is significant: average per capita incomes are 2-4
times lower than elsewhere in the country, and, while inter-regional
income inequality accounts for only about 1/5 of total inequality in
Ghana, it increased during the 1990s, and it could be anticipated that
this trend will have continued into the new millennium. The incidence
of poverty fell little in the north (and the average depth of poverty
increased), while it fell moderately in much (but not all) of the south
during the 1990s. Part of the reason may be the north’s dependence on ‘
food crop farming’, an occupation which did not benefit from the
liberalised economy of the 1980s and 1990s. There have been
disproportionately few investment projects in the northern regions in
the early part of this decade, confirming the likelihood that there
will be little growth-induced reduction of north-south inequality or
poverty in the north.
|
AbdelRahmen
El Lahga
Comparing
Wealth Polarization Over Time
and Across Countries in Africa
Institut
Superieur de Gestion, Tunisia - 2005 |
| |
|
|
Branco
Milanovic
Global
income inequality: what it is and why it matters?
World Bank papers - 2005
Global inequality is a relatively recent topic. The first calculations
of inequality
across world citizens were done in the early 1980s.2 This is because in
order to calculate
global inequality, one needs to have data on (within-)national income
distributions for
most of the countries in the world, or at least for most of the
populous and rich countries.
But it is only from the early- to mid-1980s that such data became
available for China,
Soviet Union and its constituent republics and large parts of Africa.
Before we move to
an analysis of global inequality, however it is useful to set the stage
by delineating what
topics we shall be concerned with and what not...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sam Moyo, 2004
Socio-economic dominance
of ethnic and racial groups – the African experience
This paper is one of many contributions commissioned by the UNDP’s HDR
report office. The objective
of the paper is to examine the nature and extent of socio-economic
dominance and exclusion in Africa,
including efforts to redress inequities. The specific objectives are to
develop a conceptual framework
examining ethnic and racial socio-economic dominance in Africa;
identify the historical and specifically
colonial roots of ethnicity and socio-economic disparities; assess
contemporary empirical patterns of
socio-economic disparities along ethnic and racial lines, based upon
key selected variables; analyze the
strategies used to mobilize ethnicity and race towards the accumulation
of power and economic
resources; and to examine public policies and civic strategies aimed at
redressing ethnic and racial
resource imbalances.
|
| |
United
Nations University
World Institute for
Development Economic Research:
DP2003/25
Kym Anderson:
Trade
Liberalization, Agriculture, and Poverty in Low-income Countries
This paper offers an economic assessment of the opportunities and
challenges provided by the
WTO’s Doha Development Agenda, particularly through agricultural trade
liberalization, for
low-income countries seeking to trade their way out of poverty. After
discussing links between
poverty, economic growth and trade, it reports modelling results
showing that farm product
markets remain the most costly of all goods market distortions in world
trade. It focuses on what
such reform might mean for countries of South Asia and sub-Saharan
Africa in particular, both
without and with their involvement in the MTN reform process. What
becomes clear is that if
those countries want to maximize their benefits from the Doha round,
they need also to free up
their own domestic product and factor markets so their farmers are
better able to take advantage
of new market-opening opportunities abroad. Other concerns of
low-income countries about
farm trade reform also are addressed: whether there would be losses
associated with tariff
preference erosion, whether food-importing countries would suffer from
higher food prices in
international markets, whether China’s WTO accession will provide an
example of trade reform
aggravating poverty via cuts to prices received by Chinese farmers, and
the impact on food
security and poverty alleviation. The paper concludes with lessons of
relevance for low-income
countries for their own domestic and trade policies.
-
DP2003/28
Giovanni Andrea Cornia and Tony Addison with Sampsa Kiiski:
Income
Distribution Changes and their Impact in the Post-World War II Period
This paper analyses the trends in within-country
inequality during the post-World War II
period, with particular attention to the last 20 years. This is done on
the basis of a review
of the relevant literature and of an econometric analysis of inequality
trends in
73 countries, which account for 80 per cent of the world’s population
and 91 per cent of
world GDP-PPP. The paper suggests that the last two decades have been
characterized by
a surge in within-country inequality in about two-thirds of the
developing, developed and
transitional nations analysed. It also suggests that in those countries
where the upsurge in
inequality was sizeable or where inequality rose from already high
levels, growth and
poverty alleviation slowed down perceptibly. While this trend towards
higher inequality
differs substantially across countries in its extent, timing and
specific causes, it marks a
clear departure from the pattern observed during the first 30 years of
the post-World War
II period during which a widespread move towards greater egalitarianism
was noted in the
majority of the socialist, developing and industrialized economies,
with the exception of
Latin America and parts of Sub-Saharan Africa.
DP2003/52
Chris Elbers, Peter Lanjouw, Johan Mistiaen, Berk Özler and Ken Simler:
Are
Neighbours Equal? Estimating Local Inequality in Three Developing
Countries (PDF 340KB)
DP2003/66
Dirk Willem te Velde and Oliver Morrissey:
Spatial
Inequality for Manufacturing Wages in Five African Countries (PDF
238KB)
DP2003/70
Luc Christiaensen, Lionel Demery and Stefano Paternostro:
Reforms,
Remoteness and Risk in Africa: Understanding Inequality and Poverty
during the
1990s (PDF
281KB)
-
DP2003/90
Simon Appleton:
Regional
or National Poverty Lines? The Case of Uganda in the 1990s
(PDF
204KB)
RP2004/04
David E. Sahn and David C. Stifel: Urban-Rural
Inequality in Living Standards in Africa (PDF
280KB)
RP2004/03
Michael Bleaney and Akira Nishiyama: Economic
Growth, Income Distribution and Poverty: Time-series and Cross-country
Evidence
from the CFA-zone Countries of sub-Saharan Africa
(PDF
244KB)
RP2004/02
David Fielding: How
Does Monetary Policy Affect the Poor? Evidence from the West African
Economic
and Monetary Union
(PDF 329KB)
RP2004/19
Jean-Paul Azam: Poverty
and Growth in the WAEMU after the 1994 Devaluation
(PDF
393KB)
RP2004/32
Michael Grimm: The
Medium- and Long-term Effects of an Expansion of Education on Poverty
in Côte
d’Ivoire: A Dynamic Microsimulation Study (PDF
301KB)
RP2004/42
Arne Bigsten and Abebe Shimeles: Prospects
for ‘Pro-Poor’ Growth in Africa (PDF
261KB)
RP2004/39
Arne Bigsten and Abebe Shimeles: Dynamics
of Poverty in Ethiopia (PDF 487KB)
RP2004/07
Barry McCormick and Jackline Wahba: Return
International Migration and Geographical Inequality: The Case of Egypt
(PDF 269KB)
RP2004/06
Mattia Romani: Love
Thy Neighbour? Evidence from Ethnic Discrimination in Information
Sharing within
Villages (PDF 397KB)
RP2005/47
Justine Nannyonjo: Conflicts,
Poverty and Human Development in Northern Uganda
(PDF
151KB)
RP2005/71
Peter Quartey: Financial
Sector Development, Savings Mobilization and Poverty Reduction in Ghana
(PDF 304KB)
RP2005/34
Indranil Dutta and Ajit Mishra: Does
Inequality lead to Conflict? (PDF
273KB)
DP2006/04
George Rapsomanikis and Alexander Sarris: The
Impact of Domestic and International Commodity Price Volatility on
Agricultural
Income Instability: Ghana, Vietnam and Peru
(PDF
152KB)
RP2006/51
Alemayehu Geda, Abebe Shimeles and Daniel Zerfu: Finance
and Poverty in Ethiopia: A Household Level Analysis
(PDF
270KB)
|
DP2003/08
Stefan Dercon and John Hoddinott:
Health,
Shocks and Poverty Persistence
In this paper we review the evidence on the impact of large shocks,
such as drought, on
child and adult health, with particular emphasis on Zimbabwe and
Ethiopia. Our focus
is on the impact of shocks on long-term outcomes, and we ask whether
there are
intrahousehold differences in these effects. The evidence suggests
substantial
fluctuations in body weight and growth retardation in response to
shocks. While there
appears to be no differential impact between boys and girls, adult
women are often
worse affected by these shocks. For children, there is no full recovery
from these losses,
affecting adult health and education outcomes, as well as lifetime
earnings. For adults,
there is no evidence of persistent effects from transitory shocks in
our data.
DP2003/25
Kym Anderson:
Trade
Liberalization, Agriculture, and Poverty in Low-income Countries
This paper offers an economic assessment of the opportunities and
challenges provided by the
WTO’s Doha Development Agenda, particularly through agricultural trade
liberalization, for
low-income countries seeking to trade their way out of poverty. After
discussing links between
poverty, economic growth and trade, it reports modelling results
showing that farm product
markets remain the most costly of all goods market distortions in world
trade. It focuses on what
such reform might mean for countries of South Asia and sub-Saharan
Africa in particular, both
without and with their involvement in the MTN reform process. What
becomes clear is that if
those countries want to maximize their benefits from the Doha round,
they need also to free up
their own domestic product and factor markets so their farmers are
better able to take advantage
of new market-opening opportunities abroad. Other concerns of
low-income countries about
farm trade reform also are addressed: whether there would be losses
associated with tariff
preference erosion, whether food-importing countries would suffer from
higher food prices in
international markets, whether China’s WTO accession will provide an
example of trade reform
aggravating poverty via cuts to prices received by Chinese farmers, and
the impact on food
security and poverty alleviation. The paper concludes with lessons of
relevance for low-income
countries for their own domestic and trade policies.
- |
|
|
