Is the Structure of Growth Different in Sub-Saharan Africa?

Taking advantage of the 2014 issue of the Povcalnet data and building on earlier works, this paper provides an anatomy of growth in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and compares it with that of the developing world (including or excluding SSA) during the three decades between the early 1980s and the early 2010s. We examined both the impact of the pattern of growth on poverty and inequality (the growth–inequality–poverty (G–I–P) nexus); and the less studied reverse causal chain emanating from poverty to subsequent inequality and growth (the poverty–inequality–growth (P–I–G) nexus). For the G–I–P nexus, we found that poverty reduction is becoming more responsive to income growth and improvement in inequality in SSA in the post-2007 years; though the responsiveness remains smaller in SSA than in the developing world (with or without SSA) throughout the three decades examined. For the P–I–G nexus, we found that SSA again differs from the rest of the developing world in that SSA countries with the highest initial poverty incidence appeared to grow subsequently faster—leading to poverty convergence; while the developing world (with or without SSA) experienced a lack of poverty convergence during the same time period. We hypothesise that the main cause of poverty convergence in SSA during 1978–2007 might be due to anti-poverty interventions by governments and foreign public and private aid inversely proportional to the depth of poverty.