Poverty Rates in a Rural District of Zimbabwe: A Case Study of the Guruve District

Type Journal Article - Journal of Social Sciences
Title Poverty Rates in a Rural District of Zimbabwe: A Case Study of the Guruve District
Author(s)
Volume 43
Issue 1
Publication (Day/Month/Year) 2015
Page numbers 25-37
URL http://krepublishers.com/02-Journals/JSS/JSS-43-0-000-15-Web/JSS-43-1-2015-Abst-PDF/JSS-43-1-025-175​2-15-Francis-J/JSS-43-1-025-1752-15-Francis-J-Tx[4].pdf
Abstract
Over the past 20 years, poverty rates in Zimbabwe have worsened. However, the absence of official
up-to-date statistics makes it difficult to measure accurately the current status of poverty in the country. The
objective of this paper was to provide empirical estimates of this phenomenon in Guruve, a predominantly rural
district located in the Mashonaland Central Province.Income Poverty, Human Development Index (HDI) andHuman
Poverty Index (HPI) were adopted as measures of poverty following the Government of Zimbabwe (GOZ)
approach used in the 2003 Poverty Assessment Study Survey (PASS). Compared to the 2003 study, respective
improvements in the District’s Income Poverty, HPI and HDI did not result in reduced poverty rates. The high
poverty rates observed in this paper implied that the chances of Guruve District meeting the Millennium Development
Goal of halving poverty rates by 2015 were almost negligible.

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