Sub-Saharan Africa's turnaround over the past couple of decades has been dramatic. After many years in decline, the continent's economy picked up in the mid-1990s. Along with this macroeconomic growth, people became healthier, many more youngsters attended schools, and the rate of extreme poverty declined from 54 percent in 1990 to 41 percent in 2015. Political and social freedoms expanded, and gender equality advanced. Conflict in the region also subsided, although it still claims thousands of civilian lives in some countries and still drives pressing numbers of displaced persons. Despite Africa’s widespread economic and social welfare accomplishments, the region’s challenges remain daunting: Economic growth has slowed in recent years. Poverty rates in many countries are the highest in the world. And notably, the number of poor in Africa is rising because of population growth. From a global perspective, the biggest concentration of poverty has shifted from South Asia to Africa. Accelerating Poverty Reduction in Africa explores critical policy entry points to address the demographic, societal, and political drivers of poverty; improve income-earning opportunities both on and off the farm; and better mobilize resources for the poor. It looks beyond macroeconomic stability and growth—critical yet insufficient components of these objectives—to ask what more could be done and where policy makers should focus their attention to speed up poverty reduction. The pro-poor policy agenda advanced in this volume requires not only economic growth where the poor work and live, but also mitigation of the many risks to which African households are exposed. As such, this report takes a "jobs" lens to its task. It focuses squarely on the productivity and livelihoods of the poor and vulnerable—that is, what it will take to increase their earnings. Finally, it presents a road map for financing the poverty and development agenda.

Annotation Comparison between Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and East Asia indicates that gender inequality in education and employment is estimated to have reduced SSA's per capita growth in the 1960-92 period by 0.8 percentage points per year. Therefore reducing gender-based asset inequality in SSA is an important development goal. This report documents the structural role of men and women in African economies and examines the linkages between the market and the household. It makes a convincing case that reducing gender inequality would increase growth, efficiency, and welfare. The authors make key recommendations for public policy intervention in the areas of participation, investment in the household economy, investment in human capital, support for rural livelihood strategies, and engendering statistics and poverty monitoring.

Early childhood, from birth through school entry, was largely invisible worldwide as a policy concern for much of the twentieth century. Children, in the eyes of most countries, were 'appendages' of their parents or simply embedded in the larger family structure. The child did not emerge as a separate social entity until school age (typically six or seven). 'Africa's Future, Africa's Challenge: Early Childhood Care and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa' focuses on the 130 million children south of the Sahel in this 0-6 age group. This book, the first of its kind, presents a balanced collection of articles written by African and non-African authors ranging from field practitioners to academicians and from members of government organizations to those of nongovernmental and local organizations. 'Africa's Future, Africa's Challenge' compiles the latest data and viewpoints on the state of Sub-Saharan Africa's children. Topics covered include the rationale for investing in young children, policy trends in early childhood development (ECD), historical perspectives of ECD in Sub-Saharan Africa including indigenous approaches, new threats from HIV/AIDS, and the importance of fathers in children's lives. The book also addresses policy development and ECD implementation issues; presents the ECD programming experience in several countries, highlighting best practices and challenges; and evaluates the impact of ECD programs in a number of countries.

"The series is sponsored by the Agence Francaise de Developpement and the World Bank."

This book provides in-depth descriptions and analysis of how cash transfer programs have evolved and been used in Sub-Saharan Africa since 2000. The analysis focuses on program features and implementation, but it also highlights political economy issues and current knowledge gaps.

The papers in this volume examine the links between gender, time use, and poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa. They contribute to a broader definition of poverty to include "time poverty," and to a broader definition of work to include household work. The papers present a conceptual framework linking both market and household work, review some of the available literature and surveys on time use in Africa, and use tools and approaches drawn from analysis of consumption-based poverty to develop the concept of a time poverty line and to examine linkages between time poverty, consumption poverty, and ot.

This book lays out a rationale, provides supporting evidence, and suggests promising pathways for Sub-Saharan Africa to sustain current economic growth by aligning its tertiary education systems with national economic strategies and labor market needs.