Assets, Prosperity, and Data in Rural Africa

This chapter explains why assets are interesting. It first outlines contrary interpretations of change in rural African societies, some of which see rising wealth, and others which see persistent rural poverty. Then it considers how those changes can be known, what data inform those debates. The chapter shows that using measures of poverty based on consumption then recent economic growth in many African countries has not been inclusive, particularly in rural areas. This is certainly the case in Tanzania. However it also shows that these measures of poverty deliberately exclude all forms of investment in productive assets. A rural population would look poor even if it was accumulating assets according to these measures. The chapter examines other studies of changes in assets in other rural societies in African contexts.