Working Paper

Composition of Growth and Alleviation of Income Poverty and Child Undernutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa

“This paper analyzes how the size and composition of growth are correlated with poverty reduction. Unlike most studies that focus only on income poverty, this study uses both income/consumption poverty and child undernutrition in the analysis, and extends the discussion on growth-poverty relationship further to include non-income poverty. Using a cross section data from SSA, the analysis has been made first to see the poverty reducing effect of sectoral growth after decomposing the sectors into seven, and then the significance of labour intensity in such differential impacts. Results indicate that both the size and composition of growth matter for income poverty reduction. However, the effect on child undernutriton is not conclusive. Underweight and stunting are negatively correlated with the size and composition of growth but not wasting. Wasting is mainly affected by the growth of per capita health expenditure.”