This chapter discusses the rate of poverty reduction in Africa compared to other developing regions and characterises the status and trends of human development in Africa on the basis of the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Index (HDI).

Concerning the issue of poverty reduction, the international community set the goal of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger in the Millennium Declaration adopted in 2000. The community specified two targets in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): over the period 1990-2015, halving the proportion of people whose income is less than US dollars (USD) 1 a day, and halving the number of people suffering from hunger. While Africa made progress in reducing poverty, the region has recorded a slow rate of poverty reduction relative to other developing regions. This has been due to three main factors. First, Africa experienced relatively high levels of economic growth only since the 2000s, so the average growth rates since 1990 were not high enough to make a substantial impact on poverty. Second, growth in Africa has not been high enough in sectors where the poor live or work. Although this situation has improved in many countries since 1996, Africa’s growth often originated from sectors with weak linkages to the rest of the economy, having little impact on job creation and poverty reduction. Third, relatively high inequality in Africa reflects that growth benefited a small part of the population and the benefits to the poor were limited. In this regard, poverty reduction policies will need to combine high economic growth with a reduction in inequality while ensuring that the sources of economic growth are broad-based.

Concerning the status of human development, the limitations of national income as a measure of progress motivated the creation of the Human Development Index (HDI) by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 1990. This measure reflected a people-centred understanding of development. Although by 2010 Africa as a whole had the lowest HDI of any region, the trend between 2000 and 2010 shows that all African countries but Zimbabwe improved their human development. Sub-Saharan Africa made, on average, the most rapid progress of any region. The regional HDI increased by 23%, followed by South Asia, where the increase was 17% over the same period. This improvement was due to rising income per capita in the 2000s in most African countries, and to genuine progress in access to knowledge and better health outcomes. Also, to some degree, improvement in human development in 2010 relative to 2000 was due to the relatively low initial level of HDI in 2000 following a decline in HDI between 1990 and 2000.

To sustain progress in human development, Africa will need to take simultaneous actions on several fronts rather than focus on only one objective. For example, economic growth will improve human development if it is inclusive and pro-poor. Similarly, investing in social sectors will produce sustainable human development if investment is accompanied by efforts to create more economic opportunities that benefit a large segment of the population. Moreover, some dimensions of human development, for example gender equality, will improve if African governments make the deliberate choice to pursue policies that promote gender equality. In this regard, the quality of economic policy will probably be as important as the resources used to advance the cause of human development in Africa.