A new report by Afrobarometer, a pan-African, non-partisan survey research network that provides reliable data on African experiences and evaluations of democracy, governance, and quality of life, has reflected that the share of Africans going without basic life necessities on a frequent basis continued to increase.
The worrisome disclosure by the research firm is coming despite claims by the national governments of their commitment to lifting millions of their citizenry out of the poverty trap.
The just published report titled the ‘Pan-Africa Profile’ showed that the proportion of Africans living under severe material deprivation had risen to its highest average level of the past 25 years.
A news report from African Press Organisation (APO) Group distributed on behalf of Afrobarometer revealed that most countries surveyed by the firm had lost the gains in poverty reduction they achieved in the first decade and a half of the 21st century.
The report, based on data from 39 African countries surveyed in 2021/2023, also suggested that increased corruption may have played a role in resurgent lived poverty, though further research is required to identify factors driving this trend.
Specifically, the report’s key findings of the report indicated that majorities of Africans reported going without a cash income (81%), medicine or medical care (66%), and sufficient food (59%), clean water (57%), and cooking fuel (51%) at least once during the previous year.
Also, the report showed that on average across 30 countries surveyed consistently since 2011/2013, about three-quarters or more of respondents have reported that they went without a cash income at least once during the previous year, with a 7-percentage-point increase since 2014/2015.
In addition, the firm’s revealed that deprivation also “shows increases, on average, for the other four basic necessities: Compared to 2014/2015, “going without” is up by 15 points for medical care, 13 points for food, 12 points for cooking fuel, and 9 points for clean water.”
Afrobarometer further reported that the rates of severe lived poverty, or the experience of “going without” basic necessities on a frequent basis, have also risen to a new high, affecting 24% of citizens.
This is even as the firm confirmed that “lived poverty varies widely across the continent in extent, intensity, and trajectory. For example, over the past decade, severe material deprivation has fallen in Liberia, Burkina Faso, Togo, Gabon, and Morocco, while increasing sharply in Nigeria, Namibia, Mali, Zimbabwe, and South Africa.
The firm’s Round 9 surveys (2021/2023) covered 39 countries during which Afrobarometer’s national partners conduct face-to-face interviews in the language of the respondent’s choice that yield country-level results with margins of error of +/-2 to +/-3 percentage points at a 95% confidence level.
