The Exact Configuration of Multidimensional Poverty, Inequality and Polarization in Cameroon After the Completion Point of the HIPC Initiative

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze multidimensional poverty, inequality and polarization and show how these later reduce non-monetary well-being in Cameroon after the completion point of the HIPC initiative. A composite well-being indicator is built throw the MCA with ECAM3 data to capture multidimensional aspect of poverty, inequality and polarization. The well-known FGT index is then used to analyze poverty. To analyze Inequality, standard measures such as S-Gini index, Theil index and the Coefficient of Variation are used and Shapley decomposition framework is applied. The Duclos-Esteban-Ray index is used to analyze polarization while Bipolarization is captured by the Foster-Wolfson index.

As a whole, the results clearly show that the unique monetary element is insufficient to highlight all the shortages which characterize poverty, inequality and polarization in Cameroon. Multidimensional poverty, inequality and polarization came to be more widespread than their monetary aspects in the country and are very pronounced in rural area, particularly in the northern part. They are also associated to female gender and old age. Policies to mitigate these phenomena should be oriented towards the endowment of infrastructures in rural zones and the amelioration of accommodation facilities in the urban zones. Also, they should improve retirement conditions so that, retired people would ameliorate their living standards and encourage rural women flowering.

Keywords: Multidimensional, Poverty, Inequality, Polarization, Bipolarization, HIPC Initiative, MCA, Composite Indicator.