Is democracy pro poor in Sub-Saharan Africa?

This study examines if democracy reduces poverty in 40 Sub-Saharan African countries for the period 1999-2018. For this purpose, we employ the Generalised Method of Moments. The results show that democracy is not directly associated with poverty reduction in sub-Saharan Africa. However, this ob-servation hides important non-linearities and an interesting pattern of policy complementarities. Indeed, democracy is associated with poverty reduction in countries where economic growth is strong and human capital high. The robustness tests carried out do not change these results. This means that poor economic growth and weak human capital not only have a direct negative effect on the well-being of SSA countries, but also prevent the poor in those countries from benefitting the gains of democracy. Therefore, in order to reduce poverty in SSA, policy makers should continue the process of democratization while simulta-neously adopting policies of economic development and human capital building. Democracy in isolation is useless for the poor in SSA.(c) 2023 The Society for Policy Modeling. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study examines the relationship between democracy and poverty reduction in 40 Sub-Saharan African countries for the period of 1999-2018. The results show that there is no direct association between democracy and poverty reduction in this region. However, there are important non-linearities and policy complementarities. Democracy is linked to poverty reduction in countries with strong economic growth and high human capital. The robustness tests confirm these findings, suggesting that economic development and human capital building should accompany democratization efforts to effectively reduce poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa.