La croissance ne suffit pas pour réduire la pauvreté

This paper contributes to the current debate on pro-poor growth. It discusses the respective impacts of macro-economic growth and the reduction of income inequality on monetary poverty. Our results emphasise the potential importance of the latter factor and suggest putting forward redistribution policies, which are usually hardly even considered. They also question the credibility of the first of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which aims at halving the proportion of the population living in absolute poverty by 2015. The first section analyses the factors which lead to placing poverty reduction at the core of development policies. The second section conducts a survey on the impact of growth and inequality on poverty reduction in the economic litterature. The third section presents the results of simulations on the evolution of poverty incidence in all the developing countries by 2015. These simulations are based on an analytical formulation of the poverty elasticity, under a log-normal hypothesis concerning the income distribution, and making various assumptions on growth rates and the evolution of inequalities. Our estimates suggest that African countries will not meet the first MDG; they also come to convergent conclusions on the potential gains in terms of poverty reduction brought about by pro-poor growth. The fourth and final section reveals the contrast between the above result and the lack of interest for redistribution policies within existing PRSPs (Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers).