Income Inequality Trends in sub-Saharan Africa: Divergence, determinants and consequences: Understanding the Determinants of Africa’s Manufacturing Malaise

Since 2000, Africa has experienced high levels of economic growth. Between 2000 and 2015, sub-Saharan Africa grew at a rate of 5.04 per cent per annum (World Bank, 2016). However, a large portion of the population has not benefitted from this growth. In 2012, 42.7 per cent of SSA lived on less than US$1.90 a day (Beegle et al., 2016). Africa’s Gini coefficient in 2010 was 0.435 (Cornia, 2016).2 The number of poor people increased from 280 million to 330 million in 2012 (World Bank, 2016). A survey of 35 African countries showed that there was ”little evidence for systemic reduction of lived poverty” (Dulani, Mattes and Logan, 2013:1)