Socio-economic historical perspective on rural poverty in Africa

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Poverty has many dimensions, changing from place to place and across time. It has to be looked at not only through economic indicators, such as level of income and consumption, but also socio-historical settings. Poverty can't be defined simply, because social, cultural, political and economic condition vary in different places. Vulnerability to risks, powerlessness, and lack of capability of poor people has become to draw more attention in the study of poverty.In this study, eight members have studied on poverty of peasant farmers and cattle herders in Africa from socio-economic dimension in historical context in different study areas. Eight studies have done in five countries, Zambia, Tanzania, Ghana, Rwanda, and Kenya. The topic of the studies are; institutional problem of poverty eradication program (Tanzania); the impacts of market liberalization (Tanzania and Zambia); historical analysis on cocoa marketing system as deprivation institution (Ghana); the impact of globalization on traditional land tenure system (Zambia); land issue caused by returned refugees (Rwanda); increased vulnerability of farmers by HIV/AIDS (Zambia); 'rationality' of cattle herders under capitalization (Kenya). These studies show the importance to study multidimensional and region specific character of poverty in Africa.