Measuring poverty and well-being in Africa: Some reflections on prospects and problems

Abstract

Poverty is a multifaceted concept which has been defined in a different number of ways. In general, it connotes deficiency or insufficiency of acceptable material needs of the people. Some authors have defined it strictly in an economic sense. For instance, Ravallion (1994) posits that poverty exists when some people in a given society do not attain a minimum level of economic well-being set by that society.