While there has been substantial progress in reducing global poverty in recent years, hundreds of millions of vulnerable children remain trapped in extreme poverty. This is especially the case on the African continent, where children account for the majority and growing proportion of the population. Despite rapid economic growth in several African countries, as well as significant achievements in both development and humanitarian interventions, a staggering number of African children remain vulnerable to extreme levels of deprivation. Existing challenges notwithstanding, a number of social policies and programmes proved successful in alleviating the burden of child poverty and deprivation. In addition to being vitally important in promoting and protecting children's rights, these social policies and programmes embody the international community's commitment to achieve the Social Development Goals (SDGs) and ensuring no one is left behind. What Works for Africa's Poorest Children? From Measurement to Action identifies the social policies and programmes that are most effective in supporting Africa's poorest and most vulnerable children, and examines the key features underpinning their documented success. It provides cutting edge examples on how we can identify child poverty and deprivation, analyses innovative ultra-poor child sensitive programmes, and provides new public financing and governance rights suggestions for child poverty elimination.

An aid worker and diplomat analyzes the problems of contemporary Africa, providing anecdotes on poverty, trade, and globalization, and explores how current approaches to foreign assistance have worked to hinder development on the continent.

Debunking the current model of international aid promoted by both Hollywood celebrities and policy makers, Moyo offers a bold new road map for financing development of the world's poorest countries.

Well-designed microfinance can help poor people improve their lives but generally such programmes do not reach the poorest. As a result, NGOs and donors have started to mount programmes explicitly targeting the extreme poor, the poorest and the ultra-poor.

The World Bank Group has two overarching goals: End extreme poverty by 2030 and promote shared prosperity by boosting the incomes of the bottom 40 percent of the population in each economy. As this year’s Poverty and Shared Prosperity report documents, the world continues to make progress toward these goals. In 2015, approximately one-tenth of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty, and the incomes of the bottom 40 percent rose in 77 percent of economies studied. But success cannot be taken for granted. Poverty remains high in Sub- Saharan Africa, as well as in fragile and conflict-affected states. At the same time, most of the world’s poor now live in middle-income countries, which tend to have higher national poverty lines. This year’s report tracks poverty comparisons at two higher poverty thresholds—$3.20 and $5.50 per day—which are typical of standards in lower- and upper-middle-income countries. In addition, the report introduces a societal poverty line based on each economy’s median income or consumption. Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2018: Piecing Together the Poverty Puzzle also recognizes that poverty is not only about income and consumption—and it introduces a multidimensional poverty measure that adds other factors, such as access to education, electricity, drinking water, and sanitation. It also explores how inequality within households could affect the global profile of the poor. All these additional pieces enrich our understanding of the poverty puzzle, bringing us closer to solving it. For more information, please visit worldbank.org/PSP

Perceptions of Africa have changed dramatically. Viewed as a continent of wars, famines and entrenched poverty in the late 1990s, there is now a focus on “Africa rising†? and an “African 21st century.†? Two decades of unprecedented economic growth in Africa should have brought substantial improvements in well-being. Whether or not they did, remains unclear given the poor quality of the data, the nature of the growth process (especially the role of natural resources), conflicts that affect part of the region, and high population growth. Poverty in a Rising Africa documents the data challenges and systematically reviews the evidence on poverty from monetary and nonmonetary perspectives, as well as a focus on dimensions of inequality. Chapter 1 maps out the availability and quality of the data needed to track monetary poverty, reflects on the governance and political processes that underpin the current situation with respect to data production, and describes some approaches to addressing the data gaps. Chapter 2 evaluates the robustness of the estimates of poverty in Africa. It concludes that poverty reduction in Africa may be slightly greater than traditional estimates suggest, although even the most optimistic estimates of poverty reduction imply that more people lived in poverty in 2012 than in 1990. A broad-stroke profile of poverty and trends in poverty in the region is presented. Chapter 3 broadens the view of poverty by considering nonmonetary dimensions of well-being, such as education, health, and freedom, using Sen's (1985) capabilities and functioning approach. While progress has been made in a number of these areas, levels remain stubbornly low. Chapter 4 reviews the evidence on inequality in Africa. It looks not only at patterns of monetary inequality in Africa but also other dimensions, including inequality of opportunity, intergenerational mobility in occupation and education, and extreme wealth in Africa.

The Bottom Billion is an elegant and impassioned synthesis from one of the world's leading experts on Africa and poverty. It was hailed as "the best non-fiction book so far this year" by Nicholas Kristoff of The New York Times.

Access to justice is a fundamental right guaranteed under a wide body of international, regional and domestic law. It is also an essential component of development policies which seek to adequately respond to the multidimensional deprivations faced by the poor in order to improve socio-economic well-being and advance the progress of the Sustainable Development Goals. Women and children make up most of Africa’s poorest and most marginalized population, and as such are often prevented from enforcing rights or seeking other recourse. This book explores and analyzes the issue of gendered access to justice, poverty and disempowerment across Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), and provides policy discussions on the integration of gender in justice programming. Through individual country case studies, the book focuses on the challenges, obstacles and successes of developing and implementing gender focused access to justice policies and programming in the region. This multidisciplinary volume will be of interest to policy makers as well as scholars and researchers focusing on poverty and gender policy across law, economics and global development in Sub-Saharan Africa. Additionally, the volume provides policy discussion applicable in other geographical areas where access to justice is elusive for the poor and marginalized.

For African cities to grow economically as they have grown in size, they must create productive environments to attract investments, increase economic efficiency, and create livable environments that prevent urban costs from rising with increased population densification. What are the central obstacles that prevent African cities and towns from becoming sustainable engines of economic growth and prosperity? Among the most critical factors that limit the growth and livability of urban areas are land markets, investments in public infrastructure and assets, and the institutions to enable both. To unleash the potential of African cities and towns for delivering services and employment in a livable and environmentally friendly environment, a sequenced approach is needed to reform institutions and policies and to target infrastructure investments. This book lays out three foundations that need fixing to guide cities and towns throughout Sub-Saharan Africa on their way to productivity and livability.

Why has Africa remained persistently poor over its recorded history? Has Africa always been poor? What has been the nature of Africa's poverty and how do we explain its origins? This volume takes a necessary interdisciplinary approach to these questions by bringing together perspectives from archaeology, linguistics, history, anthropology, political science, and economics. Several contributors note that Africa's development was at par with many areas of Europe in the first millennium of the Common Era. Why Africa fell behind is a key theme in this volume, with insights that should inform Africa's developmental strategies.