The most destitute regions of the planet—in Africa, Central Asia, the Andes and a few other places—are not merely poor: they are seemingly trapped in poverty and prone to internal violence and political collapse. The regional distribution of these poverty traps is not random. None are in Europe or North America. Asia now has only a few. Most of tropical Africa is in a poverty trap or barely emerging from one, but northern Africa and South Africa are not. What can we learn from these geographic patterns?

As noted in previous columns, the primary problem in most impoverished places is low food productivity, typically as a result of dependence on irregular rainfall rather than irrigation; on weak and easily weathered soils; and often on steeply mountainous, degraded land. The second problem is a heavy burden of disease. The tropics, especially in Africa, are home to lethal and debilitating diseases that are nonexistent or easily controlled in temperate zones. Malnutrition also raises the disease burden markedly. The third obstacle is physical isolation. Many impoverished states are landlocked, with no easy access to sea-based trade. And even countries with seaports can face extreme transport problems because of mountainous terrain, large inland populations and overall remoteness from world trade routes.

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