Understanding Poverty in Africa OPHI OXFORD POVERTY & HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE OPHI BRIEFING 56 2020 Understanding Poverty in Africa Ross Jennings and Christian Oldiges Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), University of Oxford This briefing1 synthesises information from the 2020 global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) with a focus on Africa.2 It provides multidimensional poverty data for 48 African countries, covering 1.25 billion people living on the continent using household surveys fielded between 2010 and 2019.3 In addition, the 2020 global MPI also includes trend data for 37 African countries enabling a focus on how poverty is changing on the African continent.4 KEY FINDINGS • 593 million people in Africa are MPI poor. • With its dual focus on the incidence and intensi- • Nine out of ten people in Niger and South Sudan ty of poverty, the MPI is an appropriate measure are poor. for ensuring that no one is left behind in the fight • More than eight of ten living in Chad, Burkina against poverty. Faso and Ethiopia are poor. • The MPI remains an important complementary • Ethiopia and Nigeria have the largest number of measure to monetary poverty measures for broad- poor people (91 million each). ening the understanding of poverty. • While six out of every ten people live in East or • The MPI has many uses as a policy tool as evi- West Africa, these two regions account for seven denced by its use for profiling those at risk during out of every ten poor people. the COVID-19 pandemic. • There are 35 subnational regions in which at least The plight of the MPI poor in Africa: nine out of every ten people are poor. How are they poor? • More than 80% of the continent’s poor people live Of the nearly 600 million MPI poor people on in rural areas. the continent: • Children under the age of 18 make up 50% of the 567 million cook with firewood. continent’s population but almost 60% of poor people. 510 million lack proper sanitation. • 340 million poor children are under the age of 18; 504 million occupy poor quality housing. 225 million are under the age of 10. • 36 of 37 African countries have seen significant 490 million cannot turn on a light bulb. decreases in levels of MPI poverty in recent years. 387 million drink water from unsafe sources. • The fastest annualized absolute reductions in pov- erty are seen in Sierra Leone, Mauritania, Liberia, 343 million live in a household where at least Guinea and Rwanda. one person is malnourished. PB 1 OPHI Briefing 56 | October 2020 Jennings and Oldiges POVERTY IN AFRICA How many are poor? Of the 1.25 billion inhabitants of Africa for whom there has the largest population on the continent with a popula- are data, 593 million (47%) are MPI poor. Levels of pov- tion of almost 200 million, representing 16% of the total erty differ significantly across the continent. Approxi- population. Yet each country is home to 91 million poor mately nine out of every ten citizens of Niger (90%) and people, and each accounts for 15% of Africa’s poor pop- South Sudan (92%) are poor. This is the case for half of ulation. Together with the Democratic Republic of the those living in Angola (51%) or Mauritania (51%) and Congo (9% of poor people), Tanzania (5%) and Uganda only one in four living in Zimbabwe (26%) or the Re- (4%), these five countries are home to approximately half public of the Congo (24%). Poverty levels are lowest in of poor people living in Africa. Tunisia (1%) and the Seychelles (1%). Two of the continent’s most populous countries – Egypt With a population of almost 110 million, Ethiopia is the and South Africa – have relatively low levels of poverty. second most populous country in Africa, accounting for While these two countries account for 12% of Africa’s total almost one in ten (9%) of the total population. Nigeria population, they are home to only 1% of all poor people. Figure 1. Number of MPI poor by country Number MPI Poor 0–1M 1M–5M 5M–10M 10M–20M 20M–40M 40M–92M NA Source: Christian Oldiges using data published by Alkire, Kanagaratnam and Suppa .5 2 3 www.ophi.org.uk Understanding Poverty in Africa Where do impoverished Africans live? From a regional perspective,6 West Africa is home to three Poverty is more concentrated in East Africa, with almost out of every ten (30%) Africans, with a similar propor- four of every ten (38%) of the continent’s poor people tion living in countries in the East (28%). Southern Afri- living in this region. Taken together with those in West ca (14%) and North Africa (16%) together are also home Africa (33%), seven out of every ten poor individuals in to three out of every ten Africans, while the remaining Africa are living in one of these regions. In contrast, only 12% reside in countries in Central Africa. Is poverty dis- 3% of the continent’s poor people are in countries in tributed the same way? North Africa. Table 1. MPI poverty by region of Africa Region Pop. share (%) Share of poor people (%) Number of poor people (millions) MPI Incidence (H) % Intensity (A) % East Africa 28 38 223 0.343 63.4 54.2 West Africa 30 33 198 0.293 52.7 55.6 Central Africa 12 16 93 0.335 62.5 53.6 Southern Africa 14 11 64 0.188 36.5 51.5 North Africa 16 3 15 0.033 7.6 43.3 Source: Authors’ computations based on data published by Alkire, Kanagaratnam and Suppa (2020). Figure 2. Incidence of MPI poverty by country Tunisia 2018 The incidence (also known as H) of poverty varies signif- Seychelles 2019 Libya 2014 icantly across the regions. Approximately three fifths of Algeria 2012/13 Egypt 2014 people living in East Africa or Central Africa were poor. South Africa 2016 Gabon 2012 This is the case for approximately half of those living in Botswana 2015/16 Morocco 2011 West Africa and a third of those in Southern Africa. Less eSwatini 2014 Lesotho 2018 than one in ten residents of countries in North Africa are Sao Tome and Princ. 2014 Congo 2014/15 poor. The intensity (known as A) of poverty also varied Zimbabwe 2019 Ghana 2014 from 43% in North Africa to 56% in West Africa. Comoros 2012 Togo 2017 Namibia 2013 As one would expect, the incidence of poverty also var- Kenya 2014 Gambia 2018 ies significantly across countries. More than nine out of Cameroon 2014 Côte d’Ivoire 2016 every ten people living in South Sudan and Niger are Nigeria 2018 Zambia 2018 poor. This was true of more than eight out of every ten Mauritania 2015 Angola 2015/16 people in Chad, Burkina Faso and Ethiopia. At the other Sudan 2014 Malawi 2015/16 end of the scale, there are six countries where less than Senegal 2017 Rwanda 2014/15 one in ten people are living in poverty: Tunisia has the Uganda 2016 Tanzania 2015/16 lowest incidence of poverty followed by Seychelles, Libya, Sierra Leone 2017 Liberia 2013 Congo DR 2017/18 Algeria, Egypt and South Africa. Guinea 2018 Benin 2017/18 Guinea-Bissau 2014 Mali 2018 Madagascar 2018 Mozambique 2011 Burundi 2016/17 Central African Rep. 2010 Ethiopia 2016 Burkina Faso 2010 Chad 2014/15 Niger 2012 South Sudan 2010 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Incidence of poverty % Source: Alkire, Kanagaratnam and Suppa (2020). 2 3 OPHI Briefing 56 | October 2020 Jennings and Oldiges Figure 3 shows the proportion of MPI poor people in Mali, via almost the entire Sahel, to Ethiopia, and cover- each subnational region; in dark red are those regions of ing nearly all of Burkina Faso, northern Benin, all but one extremely high levels of MPI poverty. Across the 578 sub- region of Niger, several northern Nigerian regions, almost national regions for which there are data, the region with the entirety of Chad, huge parts of Sudan, nearly all re- the highest proportion of MPI poor people is Wadi Fira gions of the Central African Republic, South Sudan,8 and in Chad, with an incidence of 99%. Chad has eight re- northern Uganda, this belt of poverty transcends bound- gions where the incidence of poverty is greater than 97%. aries, languages and cultures. In total, there are 35 subnational regions in which at least Another cluster of high levels of poverty is visible across 90% of the people are MPI poor and 116 regions where several regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 80% or more are poor.7 Over 220 million poor people They stretch from the northern region of Nord Ubangi are living in these regions of highly concentrated poverty, via the central region of Tshuapa, where 89% of the pop- accounting for more than a third of Africa’s poor people. ulation is MPI poor, to regions bordering Angola, where The dark red areas of the map identify a long corridor of up to 94% of the population is MPI poor in Kasai. Simi- high MPI poverty that stretches all the way from West Af- lar pockets of high levels of poverty can be seen in several rica to the Horn of Africa in the East. From Timbuktu in regions in Mozambique and Madagascar. Figure 3. Incidence of MPI poverty by subnational region Incidence (%) 0–20 20–40 40–60 60–80 80–100 NA Source: Christian Oldiges using data published by Alkire, Kanagaratnam and Suppa (2020). 4 5 www.ophi.org.uk Understanding Poverty in Africa But a focus on the dark red regions of the map ignores of poverty for those people is more intense.