Agriculture, Rural Poverty and Income Inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa

Income Inequality Trends in Sub-Saharan Africa: Divergence, Determinants and Consequences (2017)

26 Pages Posted: 23 Jan 2018

See all articles by Ayodele Odusola

Ayodele Odusola

United Nations Development Programme

Date Written: August 2017

Abstract

The developmental role of agriculture has long been recognized in the literature. As a leading sector of most economies in the developing world, agriculture helps facilitate industrial growth and structural economic transformation. Agriculture plays a multidimensional role in the development process, which includes eliciting economic growth, generating employment opportunities, contributing to value chains, reducing poverty, lowering income disparities, ensuring food security, delivering environmental services and providing foreign exchange earnings, among others. Due to the neglect of this sector, development progress has been hindered in a number of countries, which explains why 75 per cent of world poverty is rural and why sectoral income disparities have exploded, as well as why intense food insecurity and environmental degradation have become widespread (World Bank, 2007; Byerlee, de Janvry and Sadoulet, 2009).

Suggested Citation

Odusola, Ayodele, Agriculture, Rural Poverty and Income Inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa (August 2017). Income Inequality Trends in Sub-Saharan Africa: Divergence, Determinants and Consequences (2017), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3101780

Ayodele Odusola (Contact Author)

United Nations Development Programme ( email )

351 Francis Baard Street
Pretoria, 00001
South Africa

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