Why have almost all efforts to reduce poverty in sub-Saharan Africa failed?

Abstract

Although the narratives about Africa is changing dramatically from “a hopeless continent” to “rising Africa”, but the poverty problem becomes even more severe. Despite the decline of poverty rate in Africa from 57% in 1990 to 43% in 2012, the absolute number of poor population in Africa has increased by 1 billion in the last 20 years mainly due to the fast population growth. The poverty in Sub-Sahara Africa can be explained from different dimensions, including historical, demographical, geographical and cultural disadvantage. Some ascribe the African poverty to lack of inclusive institution and western democracy, which is a west-centered perspective. This article recognizes the diversification of each sub-Saharan African country and the risk to generalize the analysis about why efforts for African poverty fail. It divides the efforts to reduce poverty in sub-Saharan African into two periods, in which the driving forces for poverty reduction are different. From the independence of African continent in 1960s until the end of the 20th century, the development aid dominated by the United States and Europe has failed in sub-Saharan Africa. First, due to the unequal status of Western donor countries and African recipient countries, the poverty reduction driven by Western forces has ignored the local adaptability of Western institutions, ideas and experiences in the Sahara region. Second, the dependency on external aid has weakened the governance capacity of African national government and hindered their internal motivation to explore their own development paths. African countries thus failed to find home-grown paths for poverty reduction. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the poverty in the Sahara region has shown new features that included increase without development, more poverty population, and further aggravated inequality. In the meantime, with the changing global landscape, the driving forces for the poverty reduction effort in Africa are also changing. Besides the traditional aid from the West, the African countries also have increasingly more trade and investment cooperation with emerging economies on the basis of non-interference, equality and mutual benefit. In the meantime, the internal development driver of sub-Saharan countries is also improving. From regional level to country level, sub-Saharan Africa began to cut loose the shackles of Western institutions and experience and start independent exploration for their own development paths. However, the current liberal world economic and political system is still the fundamental factor that restricted Africa to eradicate poverty. Although the new partnership between emerging economies and sub-Saharan Africa provides alternative experience and choice for poverty reduction in the region, but the presence of emerging countries has not fundamentally changed Africa’s periphery position in the current liberal world order and the world system. Moreover, due to the West’s strong voice and capacity for setting international agendas, Africa often faces the dilemma of the primary stage of economic development and high standards of ethics. This might hamper African cooperation with emerging economies in industrial capacity cooperation and technology transfer and further its integration into the global industrial chain.