During the first decade of the 21^st century, sub-Saharan Africa experienced its strongest period of sustained growth in decades. Economic indicators were up, and with them, many indicators of poverty witnessed marked improvements. But to what extent has Sub-Saharan Africa's record of economic growth made a material difference in the everyday lives of ordinary Africans? And to what extent have these region-wide trends been broadly shared across all countries? To examine these and other questions, we turn to an experiential measure of "lived poverty" that captures a portion of the central core of the concept of poverty that is not well captured by existing measures, and thus offers an important complement to official statistics on poverty and development.

The most recent data on lived poverty comes from public attitude surveys conducted by the Afrobarometer in 19 countries during 2008. We also report some results from a 2005 survey in Zimbabwe (since a new survey was not possible during 2008). The key findings are summarized below, and described in full in the text that follows.

Lived Poverty, 2008
The Lived Poverty Index (LPI) is based on a series of five questions that assess how frequently people go without basic necessities (enough food to eat, clean water, medicines or medical treatment, cooking fuel, and a cash income) during the course of a year. We find that:

• In every country, the most commonly reported shortage was a cash income, followed by shortages of medical care, food, clean water, and cooking fuel, in that order.
• The LPI score is created by combining the responses to create an average (mean) LPI score for each individual or for each country. Scores range along a five-point scale that runs from 0 (which can be thought of as no lived poverty) to 4 (which would reflect a constant absence of all basic necessities).
• The mean level of Lived Poverty across all nineteen 2008 surveys is 1.25 (on the scale of 0 to 4). However, there is significant cross-national variation around that mean, ranging from a high of 1.90 in Senegal (and 1.96 in Zimbabwe 2005) to 0.78 in Cape Verde.
• While the wealthiest countries tend to have substantially lower levels of lived poverty, the relation is relatively weak.

Trends in Lived Poverty, 2000-2008
To compare countries over time, we re-calculate a three-item scale (using only water, food and medical treatment) and track trends across 10 countries from 2000 to 2008. We find that:

• Lived poverty has indeed decreased within this group of 10 countries, from 0.71 circa 2000 to 0.67 in 2008 (on a scale of 0 to 2).
• But this 10-country trend masks wide variations. There have been overall decreases in lived poverty between 2000 and 2008 in six countries: Ghana, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, and Zambia.
• Lived poverty, however, remained essentially unchanged in Mali and Tanzania, and we observe sharp increases in three countries: Botswana, Nigeria and Zimbabwe (to 2005).
• Using the same scale to examine trends in countries that joined the Afrobarometer in 2002 or 2005, we find that poverty reduction has occurred in an additional three countries: Cape Verde, Kenya and Mozambique. It has increased in Benin, Madagascar, and Senegal.

Explaining Country Trajectories
The question then arises as to why we see such uneven country level trends in the reduction of lived poverty? Is it because growth has been equally uneven?

• A poverty-line based indicator does not seem to correspond particularly well to our lived poverty findings.
• National economic growth does seem to be at least modestly associated with changes in lived poverty. Examining trends across 17 countries between 2001 and 2007, lived poverty fell only in those countries that achieved growth rates of 5.5% or higher.

But the disparate paths of lived poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa appear to have at least one other important source: freedom and democracy.

• In each round of surveys, lived poverty has had a substantial correlation with indicators of political freedom: higher levels of political freedoms are associated with lower levels of lived poverty. But this might be due to higher levels of wealth among the region’s more democratic countries.
• But we also find that changes in freedom (democratization) are strongly linked to changes in lived poverty (poverty reduction).
• Five countries exhibit the linkage of political freedom and poverty reduction quite clearly. As political freedom has increased in Zambia and Ghana between 1999 and 2008, levels of poverty have come down steadily. On the other hand, as political freedom decreased in Zimbabwe, Senegal and Madagascar, lived poverty has steadily increased

In sum, lived poverty remains extensive. While most Afrobarometer countries have managed to reduce lived poverty, others have allowed it to increase. Cross-national differences in national wealth and economic growth help explain differing country trajectories in lived poverty. However, a more complete picture must also take into consideration the state of political freedom.

Lived poverty is strongly related to country level measures of political freedom, and changes in poverty are related to changes in freedom. This finding simultaneously supports Sen's (1999) arguments about the crucial importance of freedom for development. Yet using different measures of both development and democracy, it also corroborates the findings of Morton Halperin, Joseph Siegle and Michael Weinstein (2004) about a “democracy advantage” for well being and prosperity.