Reasonable Goals for Poverty in Africa: Targets for the Post-2015 MDGs and Agenda 2063

African Futures Paper No. 13. (update of AFP No. 10 using 2011 as the currency reference year). Institute for Security Studies and Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures, Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver. Pretoria, South Africa, and Denver, CO, USA.

The eradication of extreme poverty is a key component in the post-2015 Millennium Development Goals' process and the African Union’s Agenda 2063. Using 2011 as the currency reference year, the International Futures forecasting system is used to explore that goal. The research suggests that even when a package of aggressive poverty reduction interventions is modeled, many African states are unlikely to make the target by 2030. The authors argue in favour of differentiated country-level targets and also of a goal that would see Africa as a whole reducing extreme poverty to below 15% by 2030 and below 4% by 2045.