Growth and Poverty in Burkina Faso: A Reassessment of the Paradox

Abstract

Previous poverty assessments for Burkina Faso were due to the neglect of some important methodological issues misleading and led to the so-called 'Burkinabè Growth-Poverty-Paradox', i.e. relatively sustained macro-economic growth, but almost constant poverty. We estimate that poverty significantly decreased between 1994 and 2003 at least on the national level, i.e. growth was in contrast to what previous poverty estimates suggested 'pro-poor'. However, we also demonstrate that between 1994 and 1998 poverty indeed increased despite a good macro-economic performance. This was due to a severe drought and a resulting profound deterioration of the purchasing power of the poor; an issue which was also overseen by previous studies.