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Chapter 2 The state of rural poverty today 57
livelihood strategies, can vary enormously within countries. The RuralStruc analysis
brings out some of these differences. 44 In Mali, the proportion of households
participating in agricultural markets as sellers ranges from less than 10 per cent to
almost 90 per cent in different areas of the country. In Senegal, the average share of
on-farm income sources (as compared with off-farm income sources) in total
household income ranges from around 30 to 70 per cent, according to the area; in
countries such as Morocco and Nicaragua, it varies from about 60 to 90 per cent; and
in Mexico the range is 10 to 60 per cent. The differences in opportunities and strategies
are reflected in different levels of household income: in Madagascar, mean incomes
vary by a factor of 3.5:1 – that is, household incomes in the most well-off of the
sampled areas are 3.5 times higher on average than in the poorest sampled areas.
In Kenya, the ratio is even higher at 3.7:1; in Senegal it is 2.8:1. In middle income
countries such as Mexico and Morocco, the rates are, not surprisingly, lower,
at 1.8:1 and 1.7:1; this may be assumed to be a result of better infrastructure and
communications, and greater mobility.
Moving in and out of poverty
By no means are all poor rural people stuck in poverty as a permanent state. Indeed,
‘the poor’ are not a stable, identifiable group of people. 45 Some have become poor,
some formerly poor have moved out of poverty, and some may have moved in and
out of poverty several times in their lives. Data from countries as varied as Argentina,
Bangladesh, Chile, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, the Islamic Republic of Iran
and Uganda indicate that there are more people who are sometimes poor than always
poor. 46 The degree of movement in and out of poverty, and the speed with which
people’s conditions change, are remarkable. Figure 7, presenting data on rural poverty
dynamics from nine countries in Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, shows
that it is very typical for 10 to 20 per cent of the population to fall into poverty
(as defined by national poverty lines) or move out of poverty within a period of five
to ten years. In the most extreme cases, more than 30 per cent of the population may
fall into or move out of poverty.
In figure 7, countries doing relatively well in development over the focal periods
(e.g. Indonesia, Uganda) were characterized by more upward mobility and less
downward mobility, although there was still significant downward mobility, especially
in Uganda. In other economies (Egypt, Ethiopia, the United Republic of Tanzania),
there was upward mobility but also higher levels of downward mobility and chronic
poverty. Households frequently fall into poverty as a result of an external shock, such
as exposure to important illnesses, market volatility, failed harvests, natural disasters
or conflict – which shows the importance of reducing or better managing risk as a
crucial part of efforts to reduce mobility into poverty. The data also show that the
household characteristics associated most often and most strongly with downward