Poverty and Environmental Degradation: Policy Implementation for Reversing the Spiral

Abstract

Poverty, in all of its manifestations, remains a serious problem in Africa despite the fact that the incidence of poverty on the continent has recently been declining. The nature of poverty in Africa keeps its eradication as a central objective of socioeconomic development. Also, strategies for reducing poverty in the African region have begun to pay more attention to the relationship between environmental degradation and that poverty. This nexus of poverty and environmental damage has led to a situation where the poor are both the victims and perpetrators of environmental damage in Africa. Environmental degradation contributes to poverty through, among other things, worsened health and by constraining the productivity of those resources upon which the poor rely, while poverty restricts the poor to acting in ways that are damaging to the environment.