A number of African countries have experienced rapid economic growth during the last decade. However, in some of these countries, poverty has not changed significantly, which implies that poor households lose relative to non-poor households and that income inequality is worsening. Alleviating poverty and reducing inequality in Africa are essential to ensuring sustainable livelihoods on the continent.

The project includes several components. The project reviews some of the critical issues in achieving sustained economic growth in natural-resource rich countries, including questions of macroeconomic management when countries become more dependent on primary products. The project also provides a link from the macroeconomic level to sectoral levels combining the aggregate growth theory with dual or sectoral levels of analysis, as expressed in the literature on structural change.

Finally, analysing economic growth from a microeconomic perspective opens up additional channels to analyse linkages between economy growth, income inequality and poverty but more important it makes it easier to understand the underlying determinants of income inequality and poverty.