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The recent surge in African economic growth rates associated with the rise in commodity prices have led to renewed interest in the role of resources in economic growth. Africa has multiple economic and social needs, infrastructure being one of them. The resource sector is contributing towards growth of investments in infrastructure, but how effective this contribution is to wider development goals needs to be chronicled. This paper examines two vectors of interaction between infrastructure and commodities: first, the direct provision of infrastructure for commodity extraction; second, the use of resource rents for infrastructure spending. This paper emphasises the policy need to align infrastructure spending with development needs, rather than building transport networks per se. We find there are positive indications that such recognition exists on a policy level, and there are partial successes. However, more needs to be carried out to ensure sub-Saharan Africa can benefit from its infrastructure spending in relation to the commodity sector. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent economic performance of Sub Saharan Africa has been very disappointing. Its poverty has many dimensions and causes, both internal and external. This paper focuses on the role of institutions in promoting or hindering economic development in Africa and the implications for doing business on the continent. It questions our understanding of institutions and how they develop and warns against simplistic assumptions in this regard. The paper examines how it is that institutions come to affect economic growth and the characteristics of what makes for good institutions. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper use both single period cross-section data as well as panel data for the period 1970 to 1990 (largely obtained from version 6.1 of the Penn World Tables) to identify the determinants of Africa's growth in per capita GDP, as well as to evaluate the empirical relevance of recent contributions that stresses the potential importance of geographical vs institutional factors in Africa's growth. The paper further contributes by making use of recent cross-country data on institutional quality and geographical characteristics of African countries. To address the danger of using an inappropriate estimation method, a number of estimation methods was used, namely OLS, LAD, GLS-random effects, fixed effects as well as a dynamic GMM-estimator. The results confirmed that the more efficient and dynamic GMM-estimator is superior and that controlling for unobserved heterogeneity, dynamic effects and endogeneity of the regressors is important. It is concluded that there is conditional convergence in Africa, and that literacy, investment, FDI and urban agglomeration have a significant positive effect on GDP per capita growth in Africa. Growth is negatively affected by government expenditure, settler mortality, malaria, landlockedness and landarea. These results support Acemoglu et al.'s (2001) ‘reversal of fortune’ thesis, namely that settler mortality is inversely related to economic growth. It further suggests that it is not one of either institutions or geography that are more important than the other, but rather that geography may have an important impact on institutions. The robust finding that the incidence of malaria has a particularly large impact on economic growth in Africa supports this conclusion. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

African countries face an economic transformation gap. Given the large and growing Chinese presence on the African continent, a fundamental question is whether Chinese firms contribute to, or hinder, economic transformation in Africa. This article conducts a scoping review of over one hundred sources, examining the pathways through which Chinese firms can affect economic transformation. On balance, the literature points to a positive role of Chinese firms. Africa–China trade leads to mixed results, while Chinese investment and infrastructure construction are found to contribute positively to transformation. Chinese firms are also found to support capacity building, spillovers and innovation in African countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the changing aid relationship between the European Union (EU) and Africa since the early 2000s, emphasising the existence of a paradox: on the one hand, the EU has been preoccupied with improving the quality of its aid; on the other hand, it has failed to fully take into account the voice of the recipients in the design of the Country Strategy Papers (CSPs). The failure to promote local ownership is due to the excessive preoccupation of the European Commission with showing that it is able to commit and spend money quickly and to the new emphasis on ensuring increased coordination and complementarity with the Member States, which results in a reduced space for negotiations with recipient countries. More controversial are the conclusions on the EU's contribution to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent increases in the size of African middle classes have excited speculation about the economic implications of these developments. This review paper argues that to understand these, we must first interrogate our analytic assumptions about the middle class and its relationship to the private sector across the continent. Africa's middle classes are born out of a different relationship with the private sector than classical theories suggest. Rather than one, homogenous middle class (or private sector), there are multiple kinds, and hence, many of our universalizing analytic assumptions about the character of that class-and its likely economic impact-may not hold. © 2015 The Authors. Journal of International Development published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the consequences of the greening of aid -- specifically the conditions which can be imposed on aid flows to render them more environmentally acceptable -- for food and livelihood security policies. Differing time preferences and goals of food security and environmental policies can lead to conflict, ' Environment-first' approaches have characterized many environmental aid policies, whereas food security goals have tended to stress economic not environmental sustainability. In order to reduce conflict between the pursuit of these two sets of obectives, a more ' people-first' approach is required. Examples of green conditionality are discussed and policy options to minimize some of its adverse consequences considered. The paper draws on examples from Sahelian Africa, but raises tentative arguments and possible scenarios, rather than tested results, seeking to provoke further discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirical research has generally attributed the dismal performance of Africa's economic growth to country-specific socio-economic and geo-political factors. This paper shows that while country-specific issues matter for Africa's economic growth, common global economic factors do matter as well. The importance of common global economic factors has been augmented by increased globalization, the introduction of the World Trade Organization and the current global economic crisis. Using system GMM panel data techniques that extend previous literature on Africa's growth, the estimation results provide new insights into the positive relationship between the world business cycle and the growth rates of African countries. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the link between IMF-World Bank stabilisation-cum-structural adjustment programs and long-run economic performance in 18 African countries on a country-specific basis for the period 1960-2009. We employ a structural break approach to study the impact on long-run growth trajectories of the introduction of adjustment programs. The analysis reveals that only few countries have shown positive and sustained results. The traditional ( first-generation) Fund-Bank adjustment package is linked with sustained increase in Gross Domestic Product, export and investment growth rates only in two countries (Ghana and Uganda). Many African economies remained on their pre-reform growth paths whereas some others experienced growth deceleration, despite more-than-a-decade-long adjustment. Taken as a whole, countries in the CFA franc currency zone fared much worse than their non-CFA counterparts because of the different adjustment strategies pursued. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By comparison with most African countries, post-apartheid South Africa appears to be characterised by growth-oriented cooperation between state and business. Economic growth has remained weak, however, and income poverty persists as the economy continues down an inegalitarian growth path that fails to reduce unemployment and thus has little effect on poverty. This paper argues that the appearance of close state-business relations is misleading: selectively pro-market public policies have not reflected a pro-business orientation on the part of the state. The governing African National Congress concurred with established business on the need for increased productivity and selective state interventions in a mixed economy. But most of the political elite overestimated the commandist powers of the state in the short-term, viewed established South African business with deep suspicion if not hostility, and was unwilling to deliberate or negotiate on distributional issues in either formal bilateral or corporatist institutions, or even informally. The state sought to discipline and transform business, not work with it. Unable to sustain an active growth coalition, a pro-poor, developmental coalition was far out of reach. The politics of the governing party precluded substantive concessions on labour market regulation and pushed it towards ever more interventionist 'black economic empowerment' policies. The result was that economic growth remained modest, and of little benefit to the poor. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic development gap been Africa and the rest of the world has widened in the past four decades with no reversal of this trend in sight. Africa has responded to its underdevelopment with the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) which seeks to deal with the continent's relative lack of economic progress as a collective by addressing the sources of its poor economic expansion. This paper examines whether NEPAD does indeed address the causes of Africa's underdevelopment and questions the probability of its success. It argues that although NEPAD recognizes and incorporates recent developments in new growth theory, the actual realisation of the vision is going to be awkward because problem areas have been glossed over in the plan. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many African capital markets find the lack of an efficiently organized capital market a serious obstacle to the efficient use of their savings, and thus to their overall economic development. To improve the situation, this paper suggests the following policy recommendations: removal of impediments to capital market development, improvement of the financial system infrastructure for efficient trading activities, sound economic policies that stabilize the exchange rate and prices to help attract foreign investors, increased integration of the local capital market with the world capital markets, encouragement of family-owned firms to go public and, most importantly, liberalization of international capital flows. The study also proposes ‘privatization’ and ‘currency union’ as enhancers of capital mobilization for real sector investment in Africa. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

HIV/AIDS is the dominant health issue in Africa, where in many countries the human and social costs are devastating. Any deterioration in economic performance is likely to compound these costs and render countries less able to cope with the epidemic. However, conventional economic theories of growth argue that the impact of such an epidemic on the growth rate and level of income may be positive or negative. The analyses reported in this paper assess the impact of the HIV epidemic upon economic growth performance in 41 African economies between 1960 and 1998. The results indicate that for African countries where the prevalence of HIV is relatively low the impact of the epidemic conforms to ‘normal’ economic expectations. However, when the prevalence of the epidemic is relatively high the macroeconomic impact of the epidemic is unclear. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Provides information on the impact of HIV and AIDS on social and economic development in Africa. Increase in the annual average medical cost for employees according to a study in Zambia; Issue concerning the pricing of anti-retroviral therapy for patients with HIV/AIDS; Significance of community involvement in reducing the spread of the infection.

This paper questions the line of reasoning followed by several authors, notably Easterly and Levine according to which ethno-linguistic fragmentation, because it leads to poor policies, is the main factor explaining the ‘tragedy’ of low African growth. A first set of criticism concerns the model itself and stresses that current empirical work is unable to convincingly identify the channels through which ethnic fragmentation affects growth: (i) polarization may be more relevant than fragmentation, (ii) the various tests of the effect of ethnicity on the quality of policy are far from being conclusive. A second set of remarks concerns the relevance of these studies to Africa: the African sub-sample is often quite limited, and the relationship is unstable (according to Chow tests). It actually appears that ethnicity has a more important effect on growth in Africa than elsewhere. This still needs to be explained and is not as such an explanation for lower African growth. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cross-sectional studies of growth in post-colonial Africa have overwhelmingly focussed on explaining the failure of growth in Africa. This prompting stylised fact has its qualifications and when these are taken into consideration the explanations of African economic growth appear incoherent. The notion of a chronic African growth failure has diverted attention from the process of economic growth and left important questions unaddressed. The quest for the African dummy has delivered transferable conclusions with a strong impact on the writing of African economic history. This critical survey of the literature argues that African economic performance needs to be evaluated from a different perspective. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global economic crisis beginning in 2008 has come at an inopportune time for Africa. Economic growth had recovered, poverty had declined, and human development had improved. Then the crisis hit. Growth then fell by 60 per cent. The growth decline has been less than in previous economic crises though. Africa's resilience currently likely results from improvements in economic and political governance and to changes in the external environment. It appears that Africa will once again resume its path towards prosperity. However, although low-income and 'fragile' countries appear to be holding up well, many of them critically depend on external assistance. Above all, the commitment to improved governance must continue. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines alternative structural adjustment programmes (SAP) with the aim of assessing which will give Africa the best chance of recovering from economic crisis and attain goal of economic development for the 1990s. Information on the basic policy directions and policy implements formulated by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA); Assertions made by World Bank to prove the efficacy of its SAP; Problems associated with the ECA proposal of structural transformation and the World Bank agenda.

This article discusses the meaning of 'ideology' and 'development' and the relationship betwen them. It examines external constraints on development, including dependence on the industrialized West and the crippling burden of debt servicing, and the issue of privatization, which is seen as cutting across the ideological boundaries separating capitalist and socialist states. It also reviews internal constraints on development, such as the shortage of essential skills and the adoption of policies favouring the urban areas, and argues that they are largely independent of ideological considerations. It maintains that the apparent strength of the movement towards de-ideologization in Africa may not prove permanent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]