Malawi's Progress Toward Shared Prosperity Since 2004

Due to recurring shocks and resulting weak economic growth, Malawi has not experienced meaningful poverty reduction since 2004. In fact, poverty has been on the raise in rural areas. As poverty is mainly a rural phenomenon in Malawi and most of the...

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Main Author:	World Bank
Format:	Report
Language:	English
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2019
Subjects:	ECONOMIC GROWTH POVERTY REDUCTION SHARED PROSPERITY MACROECONOMIC MANAGEMENT EQUALITY INCOME DISTRIBUTION POOR FARMER ECONOMIC SHOCKS
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/872561563259844290/Malawis-Progress-Toward-Shared-Prosperity-Since-2004 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/32265

id	okr-10986-32265
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-322652021-05-25T09:26:53Z Malawi's Progress Toward Shared Prosperity Since 2004 World Bank ECONOMIC GROWTH POVERTY REDUCTION SHARED PROSPERITY MACROECONOMIC MANAGEMENT EQUALITY INCOME DISTRIBUTION POOR FARMER ECONOMIC SHOCKS Due to recurring shocks and resulting weak economic growth, Malawi has not experienced meaningful poverty reduction since 2004. In fact, poverty has been on the raise in rural areas. As poverty is mainly a rural phenomenon in Malawi and most of the poor engage in crop production, this report briefly explores agricultural practice of the poor farmers. Since 2010, consumption of households at the bottom of the welfare distribution has increased significantly. This has reduced inequality and ultra-poverty. Decomposition of poverty changes indicates that favorable redistribution has contributed to poverty reduction after 2010, but lack of growth hinders progress in poverty reduction. Despite seemingly unchanging poverty since 2004, there is enormous seasonality in well-being, and poverty is much higher during lean season. Analysis of poverty and consumption across quarters of a given agricultural year (from harvest to lean season) shows that poverty is relatively low in the harvest season, but it increases continuously and reaches its peak in the lean season. This seasonal variation in well-being is pronounced in drought years.The farm input subsidy program (FISP), one of the key agriculture policy interventions implemented by the government of Malawi, has increased applications of fertilizer in the country relative to neighboring countries or the Sub-Saharan Africa average. Even if the FISP has increased fertilizer application rate relative to neighboring countries, agriculture technology adoption is lower among poor farmers and is on the decline since 2010. As a result, crop yield is lower for poor farmers. 2019-08-15T20:35:06Z 2019-08-15T20:35:06Z 2018-09 Report http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/872561563259844290/Malawis-Progress-Toward-Shared-Prosperity-Since-2004 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/32265 English CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Economic & Sector Work Economic & Sector Work :: Poverty Assessment Africa Malawi
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English
topic	ECONOMIC GROWTH POVERTY REDUCTION SHARED PROSPERITY MACROECONOMIC MANAGEMENT EQUALITY INCOME DISTRIBUTION POOR FARMER ECONOMIC SHOCKS
spellingShingle	ECONOMIC GROWTH POVERTY REDUCTION SHARED PROSPERITY MACROECONOMIC MANAGEMENT EQUALITY INCOME DISTRIBUTION POOR FARMER ECONOMIC SHOCKS World Bank Malawi's Progress Toward Shared Prosperity Since 2004
geographic_facet	Africa Malawi
description	Due to recurring shocks and resulting weak economic growth, Malawi has not experienced meaningful poverty reduction since 2004. In fact, poverty has been on the raise in rural areas. As poverty is mainly a rural phenomenon in Malawi and most of the poor engage in crop production, this report briefly explores agricultural practice of the poor farmers. Since 2010, consumption of households at the bottom of the welfare distribution has increased significantly. This has reduced inequality and ultra-poverty. Decomposition of poverty changes indicates that favorable redistribution has contributed to poverty reduction after 2010, but lack of growth hinders progress in poverty reduction. Despite seemingly unchanging poverty since 2004, there is enormous seasonality in well-being, and poverty is much higher during lean season. Analysis of poverty and consumption across quarters of a given agricultural year (from harvest to lean season) shows that poverty is relatively low in the harvest season, but it increases continuously and reaches its peak in the lean season. This seasonal variation in well-being is pronounced in drought years.The farm input subsidy program (FISP), one of the key agriculture policy interventions implemented by the government of Malawi, has increased applications of fertilizer in the country relative to neighboring countries or the Sub-Saharan Africa average. Even if the FISP has increased fertilizer application rate relative to neighboring countries, agriculture technology adoption is lower among poor farmers and is on the decline since 2010. As a result, crop yield is lower for poor farmers.
format	Report
author	World Bank
author_facet	World Bank
author_sort	World Bank
title	Malawi's Progress Toward Shared Prosperity Since 2004
title_short	Malawi's Progress Toward Shared Prosperity Since 2004
title_full	Malawi's Progress Toward Shared Prosperity Since 2004
title_fullStr	Malawi's Progress Toward Shared Prosperity Since 2004
title_full_unstemmed	Malawi's Progress Toward Shared Prosperity Since 2004
title_sort	malawi's progress toward shared prosperity since 2004
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2019
url	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/872561563259844290/Malawis-Progress-Toward-Shared-Prosperity-Since-2004 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/32265
_version_	1764476123056439296

Malawi's Progress Toward Shared Prosperity Since 2004

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