Governance and Poverty Reduction in Africa

The linkage between a prudent and more effective state presence and poverty reduction has become a central area of inquiry. Lessons from the rapid economic growth in East Asian economies has further established the fact that growth in gross domestic product is an insufficient measure in abating poverty problems. Records show that prudence of governments in these countries played a key role in the successes they recorded. Using this as a benchmark, this paper assesses the prevailing state of poverty in Africa and attempts to underline the key issues, and the challenges of the democratic governance, regarding its role towards poverty reduction in the continent.