The nearly 750 million people who live in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are among the world's poorest. To foster the economic growth required to create jobs, raise living standards, and hasten development, SSA nations need to attract more foreign capital, which, by enhancing imported technology and...

The Public Expenditure Review (PER) in Benin is considered an integral component of the structural adjustment program. The process is multi-year and multi-sectoral, in order to allow the government to thoroughly analyze every sector's expenditures for consistency with its corresponding sector...

The report requested by the government of Malawi updates the poverty assessment completed in March 1990. It will guide policy and investment priorities, and inform the design of programs intended to improve living conditions and increase incomes of the people in Malawi. A greater understanding...

This report, taking action for poverty reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa, commissioned in 1993 by the Bank's Africa region differs from others in that it focuses on the Bank's operational program to reduce poverty. It analyses the connections between its poverty assessments, country assistance...

An important finding from analyzing the survey data from the poverty assessment study on Nigeria is the concentration of the poor in communities in which most of the other households are also poor, and the tendency of the non-poor households to reside in communities in which the population is...

About half of Kenya's rural population (approximately 9 million people) was the poverty line in 1992, a proportion unchanged from 1982. In urban areas, approximately a million and a quarter persons or 30 percent of the population was below the poverty line. In the early 1980s, Kenya's social...

This report compares poverty levels and trends in sub - Saharan Africa with the rest of the world. It then uses national aggregate indicators to look at poverty trends and levels across African countries. This section makes use of demographic, economic and social indicators from the Bank's...