The Contribution of Absolute Income Towards Poverty Reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Case of Rwanda

Abstract

The study portrays current worldwide empirical facts on the progress of economic growth and poverty relief in developing countries of the world. It’s well known that in most developing countries, the lives of citizens are not always very pleasant. There are usually lots of inconveniences in the ways of life for the citizen of these countries. Whenever the government of such a country responds to the inconveniences of life by formulating developmental programs to alleviate the problems of the people, such programs in most cases, do not work, making such government to be frustrated and discouraged. However, the government of Rwanda plays an important role in a number of areas including agriculture, education, and the health sector in order to reduce the mortality rate to its citizens and promote entrepreneurship. The aim of this study is to evaluate the level of absolute poverty and the appropriate methods that Rwanda has applied to curb down poverty levels, at the same time, picking key lessons and guidelines that can be of assistance in curbing down poverty in parts of sub-Saharan countries, Rwanda inclusive. In order to achieve its aim, the paper was put into four sections. Section one explains the poverty profile of Rwanda before and immediately after the genocide while the second part describes the short strategies that Rwanda took to reduce poverty. Section three elaborates the work the country puts to ensure it achieves its goals of achieving long-term goals of becoming a middle-income country by 2020. The fourth section describes the environment that the state has created to ensure that its strategies work as planned. The research work also relies on other related secondary documents from the mentioned institutions.