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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| Language: | English |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2019
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/872561563259844290/Malawis-Progress-Toward-Shared-Prosperity-Since-2004 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/32265 |
| Summary: | 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. |
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