Socio-economic historical perspective on rural poverty in Africa

贫困有很多方面，从一个地方到另一个地方，跨越时间的变化。它不仅要通过收入和消费水平等经济指标来考察，还必须通过社会历史背景来考察。贫困不能简单地定义，因为不同地区的社会、文化、政治和经济条件不同。贫困人口的风险脆弱性、无能为力和能力不足已成为贫困研究中越来越受到关注的问题。在本研究中，8名成员从不同研究领域的历史背景下的社会经济维度研究了非洲农牧民的贫困问题。在赞比亚、坦桑尼亚、加纳、卢旺达和肯尼亚等五个国家进行了八项研究。这些研究的主题是：消除贫困计划的体制问题(坦桑尼亚)；市场自由化的影响(坦桑尼亚和赞比亚)；作为剥夺制度的可可销售制度的历史分析(加纳)；全球化对传统土地保有权制度的影响(赞比亚)；难民返回造成的土地问题(卢旺达)；艾滋病毒/艾滋病增加农民的脆弱性(赞比亚)；资本化下的牧民的“合理性”(肯尼亚)。这些研究表明，研究非洲贫困的多层面和区域特点具有重要意义。

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.