AFRIKA FOCUS Vol.5, No.V. J UNE 2010 POVERTY, INCOME DISTRIBUTION AND LABOUR MARKET ISSUES IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA ERIK THORBECKE Professor of Economics and Food Economics, Cornell University.USA., DR. NGEREBO-A T.A. Department of Banking and Finance Rivers State University of Science and Technology P. M. B. 5080, Nkpolu- Port Harcourt, Nigeria. E-Mail: oniminp2002@yahoo.com And ALI ABDEL GADIR ALI Chief, Economic and Social Policy Division, UNECA ABSTRACT This article investigates the causes, level and remedies of poverty as well as the rural profile of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) from a new and highly disaggregated data set of a large number of recent country household surveys. The profile that results from the data analysis is quite bleak and reveals the significantly greater poverty, income inequality and agricultural stagnation in SSA as compared with Asia and other parts of the developing world. The discouraging rural socioeconomic profile that is painted in this article raises two fundamental issues: (1) why did the rural sector in SSA evolve so differently than in other regions and particularly Asia; and, (2) what are the main factors that contributed to or caused the particular rural development path followed by SSA in recent times? Consequently, the article explores the major factors that appear to have influenced the African rural sector development path. These factors are grouped together under the heading of physical, technological and legal environment and further subdivided into access to land, quantity and quality of infrastructure, extent of market integration for agricultural products, relative size of the marketable surplus, agro-climatic diversity and technological constraints, and land tenure and titling. The article conducts an analysis of policies, institutions, and cultural and community norms affecting agriculture and the rural sector, asserting that policies SSA countries at the macroeconomic and sectoral levels have tended to