Reasonable goals for reducing poverty in Africa

The paper argues that the World Bank's target of reducing extreme poverty to below 3% by 2030 is unrealistic for most African nations. Using a revised extreme poverty line of US$1.75 (2011 PPP), the authors propose a more achievable continental goal of reducing extreme poverty to below 15% by 2030 and below 4% by 2045. The analysis emphasizes that while pro-poor economic growth provides the most immediate impact, a combined approach including social assistance, human development, and progressive social change is necessary to address chronic poverty and structural inequalities.

• The authors propose a revised extreme poverty line of US$1.75 per day in 2011 PPP and a severe poverty line of US$1.00 per day in 2011 PPP. Based on this, they estimate that 388 million Africans (33% of the population) lived under the extreme poverty line in 2013.
• The World Bank's target of reducing extreme poverty to below 3% by 2030 is deemed unrealistic for many African states, as it does not account for varying initial conditions. The authors instead suggest a target of reducing extreme poverty to below 15% by 2030 and below 4% by 2045 for the continent.
• A significant portion of the poor in Africa are likely to be chronically poor, as approximately 197 million people live below the severe poverty line (US$1.00 a day), which is nearly half of those in extreme poverty. This large poverty gap makes reducing extreme poverty more difficult.
• The burden of extreme poverty is becoming increasingly concentrated in a small number of countries. By 2030, 67% of the continent's extreme poverty is expected to be concentrated in 10 countries, rising to 81% by 2063.
• Among the four intervention clusters modeled, pro-poor economic growth—focusing on agricultural production and domestic demand—yields the greatest poverty reduction by 2030. Human development benefits the severely poor primarily by 2063, while social assistance has an increasing effect over time.
• A combined intervention strategy (social assistance, pro-poor growth, human development, and progressive social change) significantly reduces poverty compared to the base case, lowering extreme poverty by 7 percentage points by 2030. However, this still leaves 15% of the population in extreme poverty, failing the 3% target.

APA

Turner, S., Cilliers, J., & Hughes, B. (2015). Reasonable goals for reducing poverty in Africa. Institute for Security Studies. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/AF_Paper13.pdf

Chicago

Turner, Sara, Jakkie Cilliers, and Barry Hughes. Reasonable goals for reducing poverty in Africa. Institute for Security Studies, 2015. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/AF_Paper13.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Turner |first1=Sara |last2=Cilliers |first2=Jakkie |last3=Hughes |first3=Barry |title=Reasonable goals for reducing poverty in Africa |publisher=Institute for Security Studies |date=February 2015 |url=https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/AF_Paper13.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{turner2015reasonable, author = {Turner, Sara and Cilliers, Jakkie and Hughes, Barry}, title = {{Reasonable goals for reducing poverty in Africa}}, institution = {Institute for Security Studies}, year = {2015}, month = feb, url = {https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/AF_Paper13.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }