ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to situate the persistence of poverty in West Africa in the context of the inadequacies of the neoliberal policy frameworks directed at mitigating it since the mid-1980s. Poverty is very hard to define objectively owing to its multidimensional nature and character. As a result, scholars have subjected poverty to many conceptual interpretations and theoretical approaches, and scrutinized it from different disciplinary backgrounds. The chapter examines the consequences of poverty for the socioeconomic well-being of the sub-region and explains the specific ways in which this has implicated the development process. Neoliberalism also recommends privatization and the dismantling of the social contract. Some of programs include the Oil Policy of 1967, the Indigenization Policy of 1976/1977, the Income Policy of 1976, the Austerity Measures of 1980, the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) of 1986, the Poverty Eradication Programs of 2000, and the National Economic, Empowerment and Development Program (SEEDS) launched in May 2004.
