An eNCA News report revealed that over five years, poverty levels across sub-Saharan Afriva fell 17.9 percent, trickling down from 34.4 percent to 16.5 percent between 2006 and 2011, respectively. Grants, basic financial services and implementing zero-value added tax on everyday good in places like South Africa helped to narrow the gap between the rich and poor.

“The transfers help to lift the income of the poorest by more than 10 fold, helping lift people out of poverty,” Catriona Purfield, senior economist at the World Bank told eNCA News. “The fiscal system was very progressive in the sense that it takes more from the rich than it does from the poor in the form of taxation.”