REGIONAL PRO-POOR GROWTH AND CONVERGENCE IN TUNISIA

This paper studies the evolution of total and regional poverty in Tunisia using the Growth Incidence Curve (GIC) approach based on individual consumption and education level from the household consumption surveys and other official publications during the period 1990-1995. Three main results are found, first, growth is pro-poor in Tunisia and poor households benefit from growth in the whole country as well as many different governorates. Second, the different social incidence curves (SGICs) using education as a social indicator confirms the fact that growth is generally pro-poor. This result means that education and human capital accumulation are important factors in decreasing poverty especially in rural areas. Third, the empirical analysis tends to confirm the existence of conditional and unconditional convergence in terms of poverty between regions, where poor governorates tend to grow more rapidly (with a high pro-poor growth) and to catch up with rich ones.