African Inequality Review
The African Inequality Review (AIR) will serve as a flagship, multi-country research initiative that advances the frontiers of knowledge about inequality in Africa.
Anchored on the impactful models of the Deaton Review and the Latin America and Caribbean Inequality Review (LACIR), this initiative will draw on strong African leadership and wide institutional partnerships to produce cutting-edge research that will substantively advance the evidence base and policy understanding needed to reduce inequalities and promote inclusive development across the continent.
The initiative aims to advance analytical frontiers in inequality research in key areas of relevance to African countries, moving beyond the simple compilation of existing evidence, through a collaborative approach of the best international and African scholars in these key areas. It aims to produce both refereed academic outputs and a synthesis volume, alongside policy-ready materials designed to inform policy decision-making at national and continental levels.
Highlight
- African Inequality Review launches
The African Inequality Review was officially launched in June, marked by key members of the project authoring a blog post.
- Inequality and inclusive development in Africa over the long run
In Africa, wide knowledge gaps exist on how inequality of opportunity and outcomes affect how markets work, returns to productive assets, and ultimately national development potential. Filling such knowledge gaps is central to informing the way forward on longer-run inclusive development on the continent. - Inequality of opportunity and social mobility
Papers in this theme will investigate the extent to which pre-determined circumstances (including parental incomes) predict important outcomes – such as incomes or education levels – in as many African countries as possible. - Gender and intersectionality in inequality dynamics
Gender inequalities are reproduced through many intersecting realities of everyday life. There is an urgent imperative to understand these intersections in ways that support impactful policy prioritisations and implementable policy packages. - Race, ethnicity, and spatial inequality
A strong evidence base reveals racial, ethnic and spatial (rural-urban and regional) inequalities to be key components of contemporary national inequality in almost all African countries. - Labour markets, informality, and technological change
Labour markets are a (if not the) central site through which inequality is generated and sustained, particularly at the intersection of informality and technological change. Despite growing interest in these dynamics, major knowledge and data gaps persist. - Climate and inequality linkages
There are a number of studies measuring the impacts of climate change or climate shocks on poverty, education, and health. However, there is much less evidence regarding how climate shocks affect different points of the consumption and income distribution across and within African countries. - Fragility, conflict, and stressed livelihoods
Armed conflict and fragility disrupt livelihoods and shape inequality dynamics across much of Africa yet remain significantly understudied in mainstream inequality research. This theme is particularly urgent given Africa's evolving conflict landscape and the concentration of global poverty and inequality in fragile settings. - Tax-benefit systems, fiscal incidence, and policies to confront inequality
Tax-benefit systems and fiscal incidence matter because they determine how much inequality is produced by markets versus how much is reduced or reinforced by the state. In African countries, informality is widespread, and consumption taxes (VAT) often dominate revenue collection while public spending is frequently constrained. - State capacity and the social contract
State capacity and the social contract have not been central lenses for inequality research in Africa. That should change. State capacity determines who benefits from public goods, how fairly taxes are raised and spent, which industries or public inputs benefit from industrial policies, and whether power bargains produce inclusive outcomes. - Perceptions of inequality
Research from other continents has shown that misperceptions of inequality levels and trends are often stark and widespread, often determined by social reference groups and narratives. But we do not know much about the perceptions of inequality and their relationship with political attitudes, support for redistribution, and wider socio-economic outcomes on the African continent. - Data, methods, and comparability advances
Unlike regions such as Latin America, Africa’s data landscape for inequality research is relatively sparse. However, reasonable advances on data sources, and methodological innovations, provide openings for more innovative and insightful inequality research. - Redistributive policies and their (in)effectiveness
A founding argument for the AIR is the urgent need to understand and tackle inequality as the basis for re-booting and pushing forward the inclusive growth and development agenda in Africa.
Steering Committee
- Dr Andrew Dabalen, World Bank
- Professor Francisco H. G. Ferreira, International Inequalities Institute, LSE
- Professor Murray Leibbrandt, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit (SALDRU) at University of Cape Town
- Dr Rodrigo Oliveira, UNU-WIDER
Expert Panel
- Professor Belinda Archibong, Johns Hopkins University
- Professor Ernest Aryeetey, University of Ghana, Legon
- Professor Ragui Assaad, Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota
- Professor François Bourguignon, Paris School of Economics
- Dr Anda David, Agence Française de Développement
- Professor Stefan Dercon, Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford
- Professor Patricia Justino, UNU-WIDER, Helsinki
- Professor Ravi Kanbur, Cornell University
- Professor Abena Oduro, University of Ghana, Legon
- Dr Oyebola Okunogbe, Development Research Group, World Bank
- Professor Abebe Shimeles, University of Cape Town
- Professor Ingrid Woolard, University of Sussex