Stagnation or Growth? Algeria’s development pathway to 2040

This report section examines poverty and equality in Algeria, noting significant reductions in income poverty and human development deficits, while highlighting persistent regional disparities and the challenges posed by unemployment and oil price volatility.

• Algeria has seen a substantial decrease in its Human Development Index deficit between 1990 and 2015 and has achieved significant income-poverty reduction over the last two decades.
• While universal social services and subsidies for food, housing, and public transportation have reduced inequality, poor targeting of these subsidies has created new social and regional inequalities, including a consumption rate gap of nearly 28% between the rich and the poor.
• Poverty is unevenly distributed geographically; the coastal regions and north are economic hubs with lower poverty rates, whereas poverty is twice as high in Sahara provinces and three times the national average in the Steppe ecological region.
• Current estimates of poverty vary by metric: IFs estimates about 2% of the population (fewer than 1 million people) live on less than US$3.20 per day, the UNDP reports roughly 5.5% live below the national poverty line, and the 2019 Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) estimated 2.1% were multidimensionally poor.
• Education is the largest contributor to the Multidimensional Poverty Index (46.8), followed by health (29.9) and standard of living (23.2). Future efforts to combat poverty and inequality are threatened by unemployment and declining oil prices.

APA

Cilliers, J., & Kwasi, S. (2022). Stagnation or Growth? Algeria’s development pathway to 2040. Institute for Security Studies. https://futures.issafrica.org/special-reports/guide.pdf?report=country/algeria&topic=05-poverty-and-equality

Chicago

Cilliers, Jakkie, and Stellah Kwasi. Stagnation or Growth? Algeria’s development pathway to 2040. Institute for Security Studies, 2022. https://futures.issafrica.org/special-reports/guide.pdf?report=country/algeria&topic=05-poverty-and-equality.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Cilliers |first1=Jakkie |last2=Kwasi |first2=Stellah |title=Stagnation or Growth? Algeria’s development pathway to 2040 |publisher=Institute for Security Studies |date=28 June 2022 |url=https://futures.issafrica.org/special-reports/guide.pdf?report=country/algeria&topic=05-poverty-and-equality |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{cilliers2022stagnation, author = {Cilliers, Jakkie and Kwasi, Stellah}, title = {{Stagnation or Growth? Algeria’s development pathway to 2040}}, institution = {Institute for Security Studies}, year = {2022}, month = jun, url = {https://futures.issafrica.org/special-reports/guide.pdf?report=country/algeria&topic=05-poverty-and-equality}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }