The International Day for the Eradication of Poverty is upon us once more, with renewed urgency to reinvigorate action to get to zero poverty. Below, select CPAN Associates provide high level reflections, part of an ongoing discussion of how realistic this goal remains in regions of sub-Saharan Africa.

Fighting extreme poverty remains an uphill task in southern Africa

By Blessings Chinsinga

Extreme poverty remains widespread, deep and severe in southern Africa. Estimates pre-pandemic found that that 88 million people (about 45.1% of the population) lived in extreme poverty. It is moreover estimated that over 40 million more people are expected to face extreme poverty by 2040.

Most countries in the region have not been able to create institutional and social foundations for structural changes to facilitate transformative and sustainable development. On top of this, Covid-19 has had a devastating impact on southern African economies leading to rising poverty, inequality and unemployment. Lack of economic diversification is slowing down the recovery process, especially since commodities play a disproportionate role in most of these economies.

Recovery efforts have been further hampered by a litany of adverse climatic episodes including severe droughts, heavy rains and flash flooding. Some countries have endured successive bouts of cyclones (for example, cyclone Ana, Idai and Freddy) with devastating impacts on their agricultural sectors as well as their basic infrastructure. The Russian-Ukraine war has simply exacerbated the situation. Fertilizers are no longer affordable to most farmers, further crippling the predominantly agrarian economies in the region. The war has also had a negative impact on the prices of various basic commodities worsening the living standards of many people in the region.

Several strategies could potentially reverse southern Africa’s pessimistic outlook on its efforts to eradicate extreme poverty. Robust social protection programmes, especially social cash transfers, are proving effective in changing and diversifying livelihood opportunities of its participants.

Alongside this, agricultural support programmes could play a vital role in the recovery efforts especially for countries reeling from successive bouts of cyclones or droughts. Job creation more broadly, especially through climate smart interventions including those targeting youth, could help support the region’s efforts to adapt to the adverse effects of climate change.

Achievement of substantive gender equality must be central to all policies and programmes by dealing with impediments that limit the economic independence and security of women.

All these efforts require reconfiguring the state to serve as a vehicle for meaningful development and sustainable structural transformation. Through decentralization policy reforms, widely adopted in the region, efforts must be made to genuinely empower people in poverty to play an active part in designing and implementing programmes that are meant to benefit them.

For more on CPAN policy recommendations to get to zero poverty in southern Africa, see:

• Policy brief: Zambia poverty dynamics research

• Policy brief: Lessons on South Africa’s social protection response to Covid-19

Microeconomic support for poverty eradication in East Africa, with a focus on Ethiopia and Tanzania

By Judith Kahamba and Yisak Tafere

The successive and multiple crises overlaying structural challenges have deterred East Africa’s promising economic growth. Drought and the COVID-19 pandemic hit Tanzania and Ethiopia hard in the last years. In Ethiopia, the war in Tigray and more recent devaluation of the national currency following the Foreign Exchange Directive has amplified challenges. Tanzanians face various dimensions of vulnerability to poverty on account of climate-related crises and health shocks on the back of weak structural economic transformation, low education levels, limited growth elasticity of poverty and limited public spending on sectors critical for people in and near poverty such as agriculture and health.

The impact of these crises and stressors on poverty reduction has been visible. For example, between 2015 and 2022, absolute poverty and income inequality has increased in Ethiopia. In Tanzania, strong growth has not consistently translated into poverty reduction.

So, what can be done amidst these challenges? In both countries, the governments have implemented various policies and strategies to reduce poverty. With regards to social protection Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net Program is hailed as one of the most ambitious social protection programmes on the continent. The Tanzania Social Action Fund’s Conditional Cash Transfer and Productive Social Safety Nets also seek to reduce extreme poverty through cash transfers to vulnerable populations.

Continued and increased investment in productive social safety net programs is still crucial in reducing vulnerability to extreme poverty. Reversing external cutbacks will be needed in contexts where international assistance has considerably supported country poverty reduction strategies.

Alongside this, a host of complementary measures are needed. This includes increasing public expenditure on agriculture to improve access to production inputs, irrigation technologies, better infrastructure, and market linkages, as well as proper coordination of the private actors along the key crop, livestock and fisheries value chains. Engagement of the private sector needs to promote climate smart agriculture to overcome the challenge of weather vulnerability in both countries.

With a larger population in the informal sector, the government also needs to invest in human capital and skills development and create a better enabling environment that fosters small enterprises to grow and survive, such as reasonable business taxes and promoting favorable microfinance services to reduce informal sector actors’ vulnerabilities to poverty, especially during external shocks.

For more on CPAN policy recommendations to get to zero poverty in East Africa, see:

• Policy brief: The role of local resources in mitigating the impact of Covid-19

• Policy brief: Responding to polycrisis in Ethiopia and Kenya

Renewing the commitment to social protection in sub-Saharan Africa

By Adeniran Adedeji

Sound macroeconomic stability, debt relief, rising commodity prices, strong global market demand, and favourable trade policies helped some sub-Saharan African countries reduce their poverty rates pre-pandemic. However, poverty reduction was already stalling in many countries prior to COVID-19. Key economic fundamentals in the region have since deteriorated along these metrics, and addressing the root causes of stagnant growth will be critical to reversing the negative poverty trajectory.

To make meaningful progress, additional tools for poverty reduction are necessary. A structured social protection framework could be one of the missing pieces in the policy toolkit, as reinforced above. Historically, social protection in the region has been fragmented, largely donor-driven, and lacked proper targeting mechanisms. The weaknesses in social transfer programs became apparent during the shocks of COVID-19.

However, the pandemic also served as a catalyst for revamping social protection programs across the subcontinent, with many countries introducing social registries and establishing institutional frameworks for social protection. Scaling up these efforts, coordinating social protection initiatives, and enhancing the role of key actors in funding and policy coordination will be crucial for sustained progress in poverty reduction.

Revamping the social protection delivery mechanism is also crucial. Digital technologies can support mapping the vulnerable groups and better targeting of the poor. Innovations that reduce leakages and improve the efficiency of social transfers will be needed in fighting corruption effectively.

For more on CPAN policy recommendations centred on social protection, see:

• Chronic poverty report chapter: The responsiveness of social protection through the Covid-19 crisis

• Policy brief: a socially just transformation through integrated social protection ‘plus’ programming’

• Working paper: Poverty dynamics and social protection in Nigeria