Poverty defies economic gains, JK tells USAID forum

President Jakaya Kikwete

President Jakaya Kikwete has said that African countries will not be able to meet the Millennium Development Goals target of halving extreme poverty below the 1990 baseline by 2015 because poverty reduction has not been correspondingly impressive, despite economic gains.

The president was delivering a keynote address on Friday in Washington, DC at the USAID Forum on “Frontiers in Development: Ending Extreme Poverty.”

He told the members attending that overall economic growth has increased from an average of 3.5 percent in the 1990s to an average of about 7 percent over the past decade.

“Despite this growth, poverty reduction has not been correspondingly impressive. In the last two decades income poverty declined from 39 percent in 1990 to 28.2 percent in 2012, a decline of about 11 percent only,” he said, adding: “This explains why we will not be able to meet the MDG target of halving extreme poverty below the 1990 baseline by 2015.”

“However, we have been successful with regard to reducing by a half the proportion of population living below the national food poverty line.
This declined from 21.6 percent in 1990 to 9.7 percent in 2012, a decline of about 12 percent,” he explained.

Regardless of the fact that political stability is an important factor in the fight against extreme poverty, conflicts have worsened the poverty situation in Africa, the president noted.

“Conflicts disrupt economic activities, scare away investments and cause destruction of property including productive assets as well as the social and economic infrastructure. Unfortunately, Africa has had an unfair share of conflicts.

Very few African countries have enjoyed uninterrupted peace in the five decades of Africa’s independence from colonial rule,” he affirmed. The president said of the 33 least developed countries from Africa about 25 have gone through some form of conflict. Even the non-LDCs in Africa have not been spared.

He told the participants that Tanzania is a typical example of a country that enjoyed uninterrupted peace and stability since independence yet she is one of the LDCs from 1971 when LDCs classification started.

“Besides a hostile global environment, economic policies pursued soon after independence which did not succeed have a big hand in this state of affairs,” he stated, adding, “As a matter of fact, the economy declined to dangerous lows.

Things began to change after the introduction of economic reforms from the 1980s,” he said.

The president said the country has stayed the course of reforms ever since with remarkable success.

“The country is now enjoying strong macro-economic performance with the last decade being exceptionally successful,” he added.

Source: The Guardian