Finance and formalisation as mechanisms for poverty reduction in Africa. Full Research Report

Abstract

The objective of the DFID/ESRC research funding is to establish how poverty in Africa and Asia can be reduced. In this project the authors have asked that question of two countries in Africa, Ghana and Tanzania. Their patterns of poverty reduction have been very different. In Ghana poverty has halved since 1991 while change in Tanzania has been very modest. What policy lessons can be learnt from these outcomes? How can research throw light on the causes of these differences and investigate how replicable is any success and how reversible any failure? Understanding economic policy outcomes in Ghana seems particularly relevant for these broad questions as it has very successfully reversed decades of economic failure. fallen. This policy success is not only relative to Tanzania but relative to Africa as a whole