3 Thematic Areas to Develop Strategies in Achieving Zero Poverty in Africa

As Africans, most significantly, at the core of our heart should sit a desire to combat poverty that has plagued the continent. Being the continent with the highest number of people living in extreme poverty should be our joint concern. This is because it shows how stunted our growth is as a continent.

One thing we cannot deny is the effort of international organizations, some well-meaning individuals, and domestic NGOs. However, it still proves that more smart work needs to be done irrespective, if we really want the labour of our present heroes not to be in vain.

I found out from my readings and research that we might need interventions in 3 areas and not just one area of “zero poverty.” Our primary focus seems to be on alleviating poverty, which is why we see efforts in augmenting social safety nets like creating jobs providing clean water, healthcare, and education, amongst others.

As much as these efforts are reasonable, these interventions, most of the time, do not create shared prosperity and are not sustainable prosperity-wise. The strategies from these interventions do not cover these two areas, which, of course, I really do not expect them to cover because they are broad areas.

Let me give an example of an intervention focused on quality education. One intervention in quality education is the building of classrooms or schools, which can be tagged as an infrastructural project. The goal is to alleviate poverty because education is a tool to make this happen. So, an NGO goes ahead to build and employ teachers to teach these underserved kids in Nigeria who initially had no access to education.

However, what, then, is the standard of the curriculum? How will a 12-year-old boy who just started primary school match up in the future in an economy where top companies only employ graduates who are below 25 years old? Ceteris paribus, this young boy would be between 28 and 30 years old when he graduates. What is the quality of the teachers to be employed? Can the NGO afford well-trained and qualified teachers?

When you look at this, you realize that issues around creating shared prosperity are affected because if that boy is not under the tutelage of a well-trained teacher, he might get to the end of his high school (secondary school). We realize that his educational level is equivalent to that of a primary 4 pupil in a school with better standards and teachers.

We need to also focus on sustainable prosperity. This is because some interventions work only in the short run. After all, a strategy for sustainability is lagging behind it. For instance, creating more job opportunities is an innovative strategy for building shared prosperity, but can remuneration protect against poverty shock? Is there a policy in place that outlines a reasonable minimum wage for both public servants and private workers? Steven Hail, in his 2018 work “Economics for Sustainable Prosperity,” shared that modern ideas should promote equitable full employment based on a well-designed job guarantee and a better financial system.

So, attention needs to be drawn to these three areas. Social innovations can be created to fix one of the three issues, while other innovators can focus on the other two issues. Domestic NGOs with a heart for combating poverty can pay attention to these topical areas and develop projects that can either alleviate poverty, create shared prosperity, or work on sustainable prosperity.