Collier, P. 2007. Poverty reduction in Africa. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104(43):16763-16768.

3.3.1 ADDRESSING GRAND CHALLENGES: Reducing poverty in Africa There are two major poverty challenges in the world, the most serious being in sub-Saharan Africa, the region that has shown little or no improvement, or even worsening, in all the key indices of health, well-being, food security, and economic growth. A different but important challenge is the very large newly-industrializing countries such as Brazil, China, and India, who have yet to translate their rapid growth into rapid improvement in well-being for their half a billion extremely poor citizens. Efforts to address poverty generally take one of three approaches: trickle down, redistribution, and social innovation. The first approach assumes that economic growth is a key to poverty reduction and that poverty-oriented growth is even more effective. The second approach seeks to redistribute some portion of societal wealth through increasing the entitlements of the poor, the bundle of income, natural resources, familial and social connections, and societal assistance that are key determinants of hunger and poverty. The third is a bottom-up approach that seeks to improve the ability of the poor to create new livelihood opportunities, to improve their existing livelihoods, or to strengthen their ability to influence growth and redistribution policies. The Reading explores the causes of poverty in Africa concentrating on three geographic differences in resource richness, scarcity, and access to the sea. Each of these poses different challenges and require different solutions.

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