Possible Governance factors of poverty include:

Lacking democracy in poor countries: "The records when we look at social dimensions of development—access to drinking water, girls' literacy, health care—are even more starkly divergent. For example, in terms of life expectancy, rich democracies typically enjoy life expectancies that are nine years longer than poor autocracies. Opportunities of finishing secondary school are 40 percent higher.


Infant mortality rates are 25 percent lower. Agricultural yields are about 25 percent higher, on average, in poor democracies than in poor autocracies—an important fact, given that 70 percent of the population in poor countries is often rural-based.""poor democracies don't spend any more on their health and education sectors as a percentage of GDP than do poor autocracies, nor do they get higher levels of foreign assistance. They don't run up higher levels of budget deficits. They simply manage the resources that they have more effectively."


The governance effectiveness of governments has a major impact on the delivery of socioeconomic outcomes for poor populations

Weak rule of law can discourage investment and thus perpetuate poverty.

Poor management of resource revenues can mean that rather than lifting countries out of poverty, revenues from such activities as oil production or gold mining actually leads to a resource curse.


Failure by governments to provide essential infrastructure worsens poverty.

Poor access to affordable education traps individuals and countries in cycles of poverty.

High levels of corruption undermine efforts to make a sustainable impact on poverty. In Nigeria, for example, more than $400 billion was stolen from the treasury by Nigeria's leaders between 1960 and 1999.


Welfare states have an effect on poverty reduction. Currently modern, expansive welfare states that ensure economic opportunity, independence and security in a near universal manner are still the exclusive domain of the developed nations, commonly constituting at least 20% of GDP, with the largest Scandinavian welfare states constituting over 40% of GDP. These modern welfare states, which largely arose in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, seeing their greatest expansion in the mid 20th century, and have proven themselves highly effective in reducing relative as well as absolute poverty in all analyzed high-income OECD countries.