Why are peoples of Algeria's poor?

In the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria, 53 per cent of poor people live in rural areas and about 23 per cent of the population lives below the national poverty line. On average, poor rural households are larger than urban households and have a higher incidence of unemployment.

Smallholder farmers, pastorals, women who are heads of households and unemployed youth tend to be the poorest people in the country’s rural areas.

The poorest of the poor are men and women who are landless and who work in the production of dry land cereal crops or as pastorals exploiting common rang elands. The highest incidence of poverty occurs in mountainous areas in the northern part of the country, in the Hauts Plateaux or steppes region and in the south Saharan region.

Algeria is emerging from several years of internal conflict that have deepened poverty and unemployment in rural areas and have contributed to deterioration of the natural resource base. Rural poverty is closely related to lack of income and employment, to the large size of most households and to low standards of education. It is a result of the continuing constraints facing the agricultural sector, such as soil erosion and degradation, increasing salinity, the poor state of repair of irrigation and drainage networks, excessive tapping of groundwater and persistent droughts. Because of past agricultural policies, minimal production technologies and support services, and widespread unemployment, rural people do not have the income they need to rise above the poverty line. They have limited access to financial services that allow them to procure equipment and obtain working capital.