Assessing the drivers of poverty in Zambia: evidence from 2010 and 2015

Poverty has remained high and also predominantly a rural phenomenon in Zambia, despite various interventions and policies over the years. As of 2015, estimates put rural poverty at 73.6%, compared to urban levels of 23.4% (CSO and World Bank, n.d.). Understanding and responding to the drivers of rural and urban poverty can help contribute to poverty reduction. The objective of this paper is to investigate these drivers of poverty in Zambia. It responds to the question: Why has extreme poverty remained at such a high level and so widespread? To answer this question, the analysis employs the 2010 and 2015 rounds of the Zambia Living Conditions Monitoring Survey (LCMS) to identify correlates of poverty in rural and urban areas, by province and by expenditure quintile. It also explores the extent to which continued high levels of poverty may be accounted for by varied poverty dynamics around the poverty line.

The analysis reveals that there continue to be provinces in Zambia with high poverty in 2015, much of which is chronic in nature. Relatively limited escapes from poverty and more variable provincial-level impoverishment suggests a context in which resilience is weak. Even so, there are positive factors that offer some protection against poverty and improve welfare across the wealth distribution – in particular, a secondary education or higher, access to electricity, non-farm enterprises and owning livestock. A policy focus on these areas and the relevant intersections (for example, the combination of a secondary education or higher and a non-farm enterprise) would benefit Zambians on the road to zero poverty.

Authors: Vidya Diwakar and Richard Bwalya

Download the report here.

The future of Zambian poverty to 2060: assessing national and sub-national trends across scenarios

Poverty in Zambia is extensive and a persistent problem. Zambia’s recent period of positive macroeconomic performance did not lead to commensurate improvements for the poorest Zambians. Over half of all Zambians live below the national poverty line and about 1 in 3 live on less than $1.00 per day. Long-term trends in development in Zambia suggest that poverty could remain a challenge for many years to come.

This report utilizes the 2015 Living Conditions Monitoring Survey (LCMS) to understand the current state of poverty in Zambia, and examines the potential long-term future of poverty in Zambia using the International Futures (IFs) forecasting system to project poverty in Zambia at national and provincial levels. In this effort it also projects poverty across scenarios that reflect policy choices and possible patterns of development in Zambia.

Authors: Mickey Rafa, Singumbe Muyeba, Jonathan Moyer, and Taylor Hanna

Download the report here.

The role of behaviour-change programming on mindsets and livelihoods

The psychosocial dimensions of poverty have long been recognised, but psychosocial factors are rarely included in development frameworks as diagnostics or as interventions to address poverty. Religion and/or faith is also broadly recognized as having the potential to affect mindsets and constraints to economic wellbeing, but faith dimensions are rarely included in poverty interventions. This is consistent with gaps in the wider literature on faith in development and in empirical evidence on faith in development programming.  A review of the literature indicates that a lack of established faith and economic development frameworks might contribute to this evidence gap. Faith and psychological attributes are also difficult to measure, likely contributing to the gap in evidence-based faith-oriented models.

CPAN partnered with World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization, to conduct an evaluation of the efficacy of its faith-based approach called Empowered Worldview (EWV). The EWV approach seeks to address ‘dependency mindsets and promote empowerment among smallholder farmers living in poverty’. We conducted a literature review to inform a conceptual framework of the potential pathways of change and outcome measures of an EWV intervention in livelihoods improvement programming. We also empirically tested the framework in Zambia on World Vision’s THRIVE programme (Transforming Household Resilience in Vulnerable Environments). THRIVE is an integrated livelihoods programme that includes EWV as a core approach—in addition to savings for transformation, natural resource management, farming as a Business, disaster risk reduction and microfinance interventions.  

Three hypotheses tested in the study:

1. Households trained in EWV are more likely to have positive mindsets (are empowered) than households not trained in EWV with regards to hope, identity, self-esteem and aspirations of economic/social well-being.

2. EWV interventions positively influence a household’s response to livelihood options, agency, and valuable social relationships leading to economic empowerment.

3. EWV interventions have a positive, statistically significant effect on livelihoods (THRIVE) results, including subjective well-being, income change, resilience, and child well-being.

Authors: Amanda Lenhardt, Vidya Diwakar, Joseph Simbaya, Emmanuel Tumusiime

Download the report here.

Download the technical brief here.

This project has been commissioned and is funded by World Vision.

Understanding the dynamics of poverty in Rwanda

Overview

While poverty rates in Rwanda have fallen significantly since the 2000s, the latest estimates reveal a slowdown in the poverty reduction rate. This calls for a better understanding of poverty and poverty dynamics in the country. In this paper, we use the latest three waves of Rwandan panel data, collected in 2010/11, 2013/14 and 2016/17, to characterise the dynamics of poverty in Rwanda and explain the slowdown in poverty reduction. Our results show that education, health insurance, diversification of occupations within households and savings all promote escape out of poverty and prevent impoverishment. The Girinka Programme acts as a lift out of poverty, while business creation has protective effect against impoverishment. Observed trends of these variables, especially the increase in households depending on agriculture wages and the reduction of business owners at the household level, appear as important factors in the slowdown in poverty reduction in Rwanda.

Authors: ODI & IPAR

Download the paper here

What to do about the slowdown in poverty reduction?

Key points

• Rwanda had been a stellar performer in poverty reduction until recently. Many of the gains were the result of government policies and programmes, but some of these programmes also have unintended consequences which need to be reviewed.

• The slowdown in poverty reduction during the 2010s has been driven by fewer escapes from poverty, the challenges people face in sustaining escapes, greater impoverishment as well as continued chronic poverty.

• In Rwanda, as elsewhere, escaping poverty and then staying out of it is mainly possible due to ‘growth from below’, and the government has been promoting this, especially in agriculture. Since around 2012, the government’s main growth thrust has been in promoting ‘growth from above’ as well as continued support to smallholder agriculture, and this has achieved significant improvements in infrastructure, the business environment and investment, as well as productivity growth in farming.

• In reviewing the poverty effects of economic transformation, a better balance between support for growth from below and growth from above is needed, especially in the nonfarm rural economy and the urban informal sector. More comprehensive and better enabling conditions for growth from below would allow more poor people to participate in and benefit from growth. • Reviews of the following issues are needed: the reasons why the rural nonfarm economy is relatively underdeveloped; the unintended consequences of a number of regulations affecting small and micro-enterprises as well as smallholder agriculture; and the unintended consequences of a raft of policies which demand cost recovery from poor and vulnerable households, limiting the savings and investments these households can make.

• Current efforts to make cities more inclusive through city Master Plans are excellent and should be pursued with vigour. This could provide a model for the other reviews suggested above.

• Rwanda’s unique health insurance scheme provides exceptional protection against ill-health as a source of impoverishment. The government and development partners could acknowledge the other sources of impoverishment – including loss of livelihood due to environmental hazards as well as the policy emphasis on cost recovery – and address these more resolutely. The loss of male labour in households where there is separation, divorce or widowhood is a further source of impoverishment, and while the government has made strenuous efforts to enhance the rights of married women in such situations, unmarried women in informal or polygamous unions are less protected.

• There has been significant progress in increasing the numbers of children enrolling in school. However, education costs are significant components of household budgets, even for poor people. Reducing or eliminating these costs through significantly increased public expenditure on education and providing children from poor families with the means to continue through secondary education would contribute significantly towards reducing poverty both now and intergenerationally.

• There are two main sources of chronic poverty: gender inequalities resulting in disadvantaged women-headed households, and the growing dependence of the poorest Rwandans on casual agricultural labour. Extending the protections currently available to married women to unmarried cohabiting and polygamously married women, as well as further measures to tighten the labour market to complement refreshed minimum wage legislation, are potential ways forward. Such measures could include implementing and extending the minimum social protection package to promote graduation from protection and social cohesion.

Author: Andrew Shepherd

Download the brief here