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Discusses aspects of the improvement of productivity in public works in African countries. Economic benefits; Case studies of productivity; Summary of the comments of experts.

Focuses on a study which described the general economic and social characteristics of integrated rural development in several West African countries. Role of social research in the study of integrated rural development; Suggestions for the preparation and execution of integrated rural development.

The article focuses on the factors which impede agricultural development in inter-tropical Africa. These factors are the insulting behavior of some western technical advisers, the active dislike of being stationed in rural areas and the disesteem for agriculture and peasants shown by the higher civil servants, the isolation of many regions due to the lack of good roads and the eccentric location of capitals and finally, the trauma of the peasant, that is to say his stoicism, apathy, inertia and lack of enthusiasm for agriculture. The discussion about the applicability of western economic theory in underdeveloped societies or sub-societies has not yet ended. It may be true that, in a radically different social structure, economic behavior includes actions and objects which in the industrial countries are not ordinarily thought of as pertaining to the economic sphere. It may also be true that some of the actions of African peasants do not correspond to what the homo economicus is supposed to do. The African peasant may sometimes strive for a target income and regard additional income as not worth the extra effort in order to obtain it.

The article discusses the role of organized labor in economic development in Africa. The following interpretations are analyzed: the interpretation of the Inter-University Study of Labor Problems in Economic Development; the political unionism viewpoint; and the interpretation of those who believe that the role of labor is to contribute to rapid economic growth. The author points that the role of organized labor to regulate conflict has been weakened in the developing areas. Thus, labor's contribution to industrialization and economic development remains an elusive one.

Argues that the main direction of economic growth and the burden of economic advice have been inappropriate for the general development of African societies. Result of the economic analysis based on the experience of industrialized societies; Analysis of the conventional economic policies which might serve to achieve balance.

The article examines the religious impact of technology in Africa. According to the author, the scientific and technological development of Africa implies a profound transformation of the way of life of its people. The author argues that the scientific and technological development of Africa has inevitably eroded its cherished values, the most prominent of which is godliness. The author adds that religion permeates life in Africa from cradle to grave.

The article assesses the influence of government policy on the lack of economic success not only in tropical Africa but in most other colonies as well. It considers first the connexion between domestic British economic problems and the promotion of colonial economic development. It follows by an analysis of the work of the Colonial Development Advisory Committee, a body formed in 1929 to spend up to £1 million a year on colonial economic development. In the third section of the article, the author discusses the long-term economic policies of the local governments and the Colonia Office.

The author's view on the role of the professional nurses association are influenced by his involvement over the past few years with the health and nursing problems of Africa and by the specific need of a society that has reached a specific stage of development. National association have different backgrounds, organizational patterns and problems, and they functions in countries with varying degrees of social and economic development. In Africa there are professional associations that are not members of the International Council of Nurses.

Suggests that African countries need to formulate strategies for rapid economic development. Potential effects of rigid class differences in Africa; Issues on social stratification.

The article discussed the impact of the received law on land-use planning and development in English-speaking Africa. In determining the goals of planning and development the existing law should not be ignored because it is one of the factors which is likely to direct and control the system. Other factors may be the technical capabilities of planners whether local or expatriate, foreign models and the economic and political strength of the people affected by or benefiting from planning schemes and development projects. The dominating Influences on development in anglophonic Africa include the following. Firstly, there are the planning and development laws which are principally legacies of colonial administration derived from the Great Britain or wherever the British Crown claimed jurisdiction or association. Second, the Great Britain continues to be one of the countries providing aid in terms of personnel, machinery and equipment and it has been more practical and expedient to copy the development techniques and experiences most familiar to those who administer the aid. Third, an overwhelming number of planners, bureaucrats, policy-makers, economists and lawyers continue to be trained in the Great Britain and the knowledge acquired there tends to reflect her own standards and values.

Much theorizing has been done about the African food crisis. This paper reviews a gendered approach to agriculture, focusing on the implications of labor differentiation, incentives, and struggles over access to resources for agricultural development. The paper then analyzes two approaches to understanding Africa's development crises. One focuses on faulty incentives created in statist strategies and the other on an uncaptured peasantry; both approaches are oblivious to gender labor relations. The paper concludes with policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existence of a traditional society is a general assumption held not only by some ethnologists but also by many development planners who blame traditional society for shortcomings of development projects. In Africa one has to deal with societies which have their own specific historical dynamics. Transformation is not a modern process, it can be observed centuries before colonial times, during colonial times and since. It is the authors' common assumption that by analogy to the concept of modes of production, there is a need to conceive a concept of modes of transformation. Modes of transformation have to be seen as a dynamic model insofar as the incorporation of new elements may transform the mode of transformation itself. The authors present a comparative analysis of some historical processes of transformation which confirms a general assumption of modern theory of autopoietic systems and self-organization that the outcome of outside interventions is not predictable in a precise way. Modes of transformation cannot be classified into conclusive ones which generally block any transformation and adaptive ones which create innovations and make use of them. The situation of many African development projects is, however, characterized by insufficient shared information about conflicting interests and strategies and by insecurity concerning the limits of strategies.

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]

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]

This article introduces a series of articles about poverty, development and budget systems.

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 paper presents the economy of the Nande in Eastern Zaire where the state has never been active in the organization of agricultural production, processing, marketing, and rural development. With roots in pre-colonial, colonial, and postcolonial times, the economy functions remarkably well and remains within the Zairean chaos like an enclave of economic survival. Consultations and cooperation between the traders, but also involving the whole population, are of great importance. It is concluded that there are cases in Africa where agricultural marketing functions without the state, but that these cases of 'state substitution' are tied to a series of conditions. Thus, general policy proclamations regarding state withdrawal are indiscriminate and misplaced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of transforming primary products for export, including local mineral processing has been addressed by successive development plans in African countries. Few projects have been realized so far. This study examines the potential impact of mineral processing activities on industry linkages and growth prospects for countries in Africa. Lessons from 'success stories' among developing nations confirm that the choice of mineral processing as an industrialization strategy will be associated with large, complex, and long-term investments, which call for sound macroeconomic policies and adequate legislative frameworks, if the potential development benefits of such activities are to be realized. Effective implementation also requires the avoidance of over-rapid absorption of export earnings. Strongly enforced policies are needed to ensure that export earnings effectively contribute to growth through domestic investments and savings. Also, a call can be made for greater involvement of the private sector or to privatization in order to quickly respond to ever increasing market demands. Moreover, opportunities for greater transformation of mineral commodities seem to be limited by a number of interrelated factors, which reduce to questions of market access, financing, management, long-term domestic supplies of inputs such as skilled labour and technology, and most importantly, the difficulty of making profitable investments, given high import costs. The analysis thus suggests that given the right combination of domestic conditions, gains from trade are likely to follow from expanding mineral processing capabilities as well as from improving related processing technologies. L'importance de la transformation des matières premières pour le développement économique africain y compris la valorisation locale des minerais a été soulignée dans divers programmes de développement. Cependant, peu de réali... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

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.

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]

This article argues for an historical synthesis of the 1970s lessons of the effort to achieve sustainable grassroots development with the explorations of the 1980s and 1990s in quest of sustainable political and economic liberalization that have centered primarily on the national level. To do so, the article contends that it is equally necessary to disaggregate, but then integrate, interdependent processes of state reconstruction and democratization. These enterprises require a harvesting of the insights of theory and the lessons of practice for each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the relationship between governance and development, and concludes that underlying the litany of Africa's development problems is a crisis of governance. Good governance would result in institutions that are more likely to adopt economic policies that would resolve the constraints that hinder economic development. In addition, it would make a major contribution to the reduction of war and conflict. It would do this by creating an environment for sustainable development to take place and thereby reduce poverty, the root cause of war and conflict. This calls for a critical examination of the question of governance in Africa with a view to identifying the obstacles to its establishment and the possible approaches to the development of systems of governance that give political space to all groups. Since the most important legal instrument in the scheme of good governance is the national constitution, the article seeks to identify some of the key issues that must be considered in the process of developing a national constitution if it is to be durable. It also addresses the conditions under which such constitutions should be developed if they are to be acceptable to the people of the country they are intended to govern. Running through the article is the theme that the establishment of good governance in Africa depends on the development of political systems that give people a sense of ownership of the political process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper utilizes cointegration and the vector error-correction model (VECM) to explore the causal relationship between economic growth and growth rate of domestic savings for Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, and Zambia. Specifically, three analyses were undertaken. First, the time series properties of economic growth and domestic savings were ascertained with the help of the augmented Dickey–Fuller unit root procedure. Second, the long-run relationship between economic growth and growth rate of domestic savings was examined in the context of the Johansen and Juselius (1990) framework. Finally, a Granger-causality test was undertaken to determine the direction of causality between economic growth and growth rate of domestic savings. The results indicate one order of integration [I(1)] for each of the series. The results of the cointegration tests suggest that there is a long-run relationship between economic growth and growth rate of savings. The results from the Granger-causality tests indicate that contrary to the conventional wisdom, economic growth prima facie causes growth rate of domestic savings for most of the countries under consideration. Le présent document utilise la co-intégration et le modèle à vecteur de correction des erreurs (VECM) pour étudier les relations de cause à effet entre la croissance économique et les taux de croissance de l’épargne intérieure au Congo, en Côte d’Ivoire, au Ghana, au Kenya, en Afrique du Sud et en Zambie. Plus précisément, trois analyses ont été effectuées. La première a vérifié les propriétés des séries chronologiques de la croissance économique et de l’épargne intérieure à l’aide de la méthode Dickey–Fuller de racine unitaire augmentée. La deuxième a examiné les relations à long terme entre ... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

African agricultural production is modeled as a sequential decision process, with men’s labor first allotted to clearing, then women’s labor allotted to harvesting. A switching regression is then used to measure the constraints due to clearing labor capacity and harvesting labor capacity. The import of men’s clearing labor depends on the valuation of shadow wages. Output appears to be more frequently constrained by husband’s clearing labor, and in this situation male labor appears under-utilized. However, output is also significantly constrained by female harvest labor, although the findings imply that female labor is over-utilized at this stage. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

As decentralisation advances, the question of local economic development acquires more significance. How can local governments and other local actors such as local producers and their associations, community based organisations, as well as NGOs and donors contribute to local economic development and poverty reduction? This article begins by examining how the context for local economic development has drastically changed. It stresses lack of demand and the absence of meso-level institutions, i.e. institutions at the level of sector and area. Their absence deters investment responses by enterprises and households. In terms of local development initiatives, a distinction is made between community economic development and enterprise or business development. The first seeks to facilitate household economic diversification as an essential strategy of rural and urban livelihood; the second, enterprise development, seeks specialisation of the local economic base. These two lines are complemented by a third category, namely locality development, designed to create local public goods and positive externalities. The final section elaborates on the principal actors and their roles, stressing the importance of joint action and collective learning. Local governments have an important facilitating role, creating a favourable business environment and infrastructure conditions, and to contribute to convergence in decision-making. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To explore factors underlying growth and poverty reduction in Africa while overcoming some of the limitations of cross-country analysis, this article uses micro-level survey and panel-data evidence from Uganda spanning 1992–2000. The high elasticity of both income growth and poverty reduction with respect to agricultural output (coffee) prices confirms the benefits from Uganda's decisive liberalisation of output markets. It also suggests the importance of product diversification to protect the poor against price shocks and the potential of cotton-market improvements in tackling persistent poverty in the North. The importance of improving access to basic education and health care emerges more clearly than in cross-country analysis, but benefits depend on complementary investments in electricity and other infrastructure, and reductions in civil strife. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on developments concerning policy and practice in Africa, as of January 2004. Occurrence of a minor earthquake in Algeria on January 10, 2004; International Development Association's approval of a credit of 4.4 million dollars on December 16, 2003, to help Cape Verde meet development objectives through employment generation and improvements in living conditions; World Food Programme's appeal for 11 million dollars to provide urgent aid for Sudanese refugees camped in Chad.

In this paper we propose that historically generated institutions and persistent pattern of human capital formation condition the emergent systems of innovation in Africa. These factors determine the development path of the region. We advance the notion of dynamic and non-dynamic systems of innovation, the latter describing the African condition. We combine the strands of literature on institutions and their persistence in shaping development with evolutionary theory and systems of innovation. Evidence is presented on the colonial origins of skewed schooling enrolment, at variance with the industrialization objective of modern economies. Employing simple statistical tests, the persistence of initial human capital (school enrolment) reflects in the significant correlation among the three levels of schooling enrolments, and correlation of enrolment in 1970 with per capita income in 2000, a periodicity of some three decades. This outcome is consistent with the literature on countries at early stages of development. Path-dependency is partially proved even though we did not attempt to investigate all variables making up the system of innovation. This is a first tentative attempt to explore long-run development in Africa within the systems of innovation framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the chief findings of research carried out in four African dryland areas to investigate the validity of the authors' ‘Machakos hypothesis’, and to derive lessons on appropriate enabling policies. The findings were subsequently submitted to in-country validation and dissemination exercises. The lessons learnt from these in regard to introducing research findings into country policy dialogues are set against the background of current discussion of this issue. The article also discusses uptake at the international level, because it tends to be at this level that development paradigms and practices are formulated and promoted into countries through donor and agency actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Africa performs poorly in the global economy. The continent lacks investments, jobs, real output, and basic social services. Aggravating the poor performance is poor management. This paper argues that the establishment of the New Partnership for Africa's Development(NEPAD) to grapple with Africa's economic problems makes sense but only if necessary policies are properly implemented. It argues that Africa should pursue interest politics through NEPAD as an economic integration. On the issue of financing the budget, which has in the past been a major constraint to OAU-initiated projects, this paper strongly recommends that it should be made mandatory that all multinational companies operating in all NEPAD member countries pay a certain percentage of their earnings into the NEPAD budget. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper empirically investigates, in the context of African countries, the determinants of income distribution and inequality, the effect of inequality on economic growth, and the channels through which inequality affects growth. Data for 35 countries over different periods in the last four decades are employed. Factors identified as having affected income distribution include the level of economic development attained, regional factors, size of government budget and the amount of it devoted to subsidies and transfers, phase of economic cycle, share of agricultural sector in total labour force, as well as human and land resources endowment. Some evidence that high inequality reduces growth is also found. The channels through which inequality affect growth are found to be through reduction in secondary and tertiary education investment, reduction in political stability, and increase in fertility rate. There is, however, no evidence that it affects private saving and investment or the size of government expenditure and taxation, contrary to what is contended in the theoretical literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the travails of the social sciences in Africa since the post-colonial era. It pinpoints the fact that the ability of the social sciences to be really meaningful to the delusive development quest by Africa has been undermined by a combination of structural and epistemological problems. These problems range from the dismal economic environment in the continent, the structural limitations imposed on research, poor conditions of service to laziness and epistemological inferiority among African social scientists. However, the paper posits that the current wind of change blowing across Africa, a re-examination of the epistemology of the field and a conscientious self-reappraisal will ultimately reposition the social sciences to play significant roles in the development of Africa. [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]

International institutions like the IMF and IBRD were created to oversee stability in international financial affairs, facilitate the expansion and balance of growth of international trade and reduce poverty in the poorest countries at risk of being left behind in economic development. The main aims of these two institutions were designed to avoid a repetition of the disastrous economic policies that contributed to the Great Depression of the 1930's. In the mid 1980's, the Fund's lending operations increased dramatically. The exigency of the debt crisis caused the Fund to devise programs for adjustment over longer periods. These are known as extended arrangements and with other medium term programs, can be arranged through the Structural Adjustment Facility or the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility. Among steps required by the IMF and IBRD to improve the health of the economy and foreign direct investment climate are an improved trade environment, economic reforms, private-sector encouragement and a better regulatory framework. The full implementation of these policies initially proved costly for some African countries and hence resulted in either partial implementation or total abandonment of the reform program.

Reports on developments in the economic conditions in Africa as of September 2004. Incompatibility of debt servicing at any level with attaining the United Nation Millennium Development Goals; Targets for improving basic development economic indicators; Recommendation of a moratorium on debt servicing and setting up an independent panel of experts to assess the sustainability of debt, based on realistic and comprehensive criteria; Decline in current account deficit; Peaceful transitions in Angola and the Dominican Republic of Congo.

In most studies of the impact of ethnic diversity on economic growth, diversity is hypothesized to affect growth through its effect on macroeconomic policies. This article shows that most measures of ethnic diversity (including the commonly used ELF measure) are inappropriate for testing this hypothesis. This is because they are constructed from enumerations of ethnic groups that include all of the ethnographically distinct groups in a country irrespective of whether or not they engage in the political competition whose effects on macroeconomic policymaking are being tested. I present a new index of ethnic fractionalization based on an accounting of politically relevant ethnic groups in 42 African countries. I employ this measure (called PREG, foroliticallyelevantthnicroups) to replicate Easterly and Levine's influential article on Africa's“growth tragedy.” I find that PREG does a much better job of accounting for the policy-mediated effects of ethnic diversity on economic growth in Africa than does ELF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports that the United Nations Development Program has earmarked 172 million dollars for the Small Grants Program in Africa under the Global Environment Facility.

Reports that many development planners and strategists are considering how the creative and cultural industry can contribute to the development of communities in Africa. Need to make a distinction between the creative and the cultural industries; Creation of conditions that would enable adapting technology and investments in producing easy-to-use computer software and hardware; Importance of including strategies to harness Africa's arts and culture as an equally critical platform for economic progress in the New Partnership for African Development; Factors that make it difficult for Africa to benefit from its cultural and creative resources.

This paper seeks to empirically explore the causal link between the level of financial development and economic growth in 13 sub-Saharan African countries. The empirical investigation is carried out in a vector autoregression(VAR) framework based on the theory of cointegration and error-correction representation of cointegrated variables. The results of the cointegration analysis provide evidence of the existence of a long-run relationship between financial development and economic growth in almost all(12 out of 13) of the countries. With respect to the direction of long-term causality, the results show that financial development plays a causal role on economic growth, again in eight of the countries. At the same time, evidence of bidirectional causal relationships is found in six countries. The findings imply that African countries can accelerate their economic growth by improving their financial systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on developments in the financial assistance in Africa by European Union and UN. Amount of contribution by EU to Benin; Donation received by Somalia for the new government to facilitate relocation from Nairobi to Somalia; Approval by World Bank of a loan to Ethiopia for a project aimed at developing a private sector capacity with the aim of creating conditions to improve productivity and competitiveness of the public sectors.

To accomplish the objectives and the outcomes of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), African leaders have agreed, among other things, to subject their countries to peer review through the use of a unique and innovative African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM). This paper analytically describes and assesses the APRM. It contends that peer review represents a sea of change in the thinking of African leaders as they seek to reverse the trend of lack of accountability, political authoritarianism, state failure, and corruption to embrace and consolidate democracy as well as effect sound and transparent economic management. It is further argued that peer review would provide a number of benefits to those countries that subject themselves to it and that, in turn, would have positive multiplier effects on Africa's development performance. [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]

The article reports on the IAAE conference on African agriculture and society. The four that the article discusses are the following, first, the Bruce Gardner "shock" in his Elmhirst Lecture on the direction of causality between agricultural growth, overall growth, and impact on rural and farm incomes; second, the debate on the fundamental changes occurring in food systems and their policy implications, particularly for small farmers in developing countries; third, the "small farm is beautiful" debate, and fourth, the analysis on rural viability and the need for a more territorial focus, in contrast to a traditional sectoral focus.

The paper uses a simple macroeconomic model to estimate the impact of debt relief and terms of trade shocks on growth and poverty in African countries. For the 18 heavily indebted poor countries (HIPCs) that reached the enhanced HIPC decision point by end-December 2000, the basic quantitative findings are that HIPC debt relief has boosted economic growth in these countries by an average of 2.9 percent per annum and that the computed result of this increase in growth is a reduction in poverty by an average of 2.2 percent per annum. However, the paper shows that recent deteriorations in the terms of trade have counter-balanced these positive effects by lowering growth by an average of 2.0 percent per annum and by increasing poverty by an average of 1.3 percent per annum. Clearly, much of the positive impact emanating from the HIPC Initiative has been eroded due to recent deteriorations in the terms of trade. The paper also estimates the net effect on growth and poverty of the recently agreed 100 percent multilateral debt relief. This is predicted to boost economic growth by an average of 5 percent per annum and reduce poverty by about 5.3 percent per annum for the group of all African HIPCs. The paper concludes that 100 percent debt relief is crucial for Africa, but that more aid and policies need to be focused on a long-term development strategy that fosters the necessary structural transformation. [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]

This paper examines the trend, constraints, promotion, and prospects of investment – domestic investment, foreign direct investment, and private portfolio investment – in Africa. After identifying the importance of investment in Africa's economic development, it was shown that all forms of investment are low in Africa and hence inadequate for the attainment of the MDGs and poverty reduction in the continent. The constraining factors include: low resources mobilization; high degree of uncertainty; poor governance, corruption, and low human capital development; unfavorable regulatory environment and poor infrastructure, small individual country sizes; high dependence on primary commodities exports and increased competition; poor image abroad; shortage of foreign exchange and the burden of huge domestic and external debt; and undeveloped capital markets, their high volatility, and home bias by foreign investors. The paper recommends that successful promotion of both domestic, foreign direct and portfolio investment in Africa will require actions and measures at the national, regional, and international levels. It concludes that the prospects are bright. New and attractive investment opportunities are emerging in infrastructure, particularly as most African countries now encourage public/private partnerships for investments in this sector. In addition to privatization, renewed interest within Africa in undertaking regionally based projects and joint exploitation of natural resources is creating other investment opportunities. Apart from the fact that investment in Africa yields the highest returns, investment risk in the continent is declining. In addition, much progress has been made in recent years to improve the investment climate in Africa. All this is of course is not to deny that obstacles do remain hence economic reforms to enhance domestic investment would need to be complemented by measures to attract increased foreign capital. Critical in such endeavors must be efforts to improve governance in some countries as well as to eliminate socio-political violence in others and development of domestic capital markets, while government institutions must be modernized and upgraded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the effect of stock market development on economic growth in 14 African countries in a dynamic panel data modelling setting. Results largely show a positive relationship between stock market development and economic growth. Further analyses, based on the level of economic development and stock market capitalization, are also conducted. The results reveal that the positive influence of stock market development on economic growth is significant for countries classified as upper middle income economies. On the basis of market capitalization groupings, stock market developments play a significant role in growth only for moderately capitalized markets. The general trend in results shows that low income African countries and less developed stock markets need to grow more and develop their markets to elicit economic gains from stock markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers news briefs related to economics in Africa. The government of Angola has approved a pay increase for public service workers and an increase in the national minimum wage. Ethiopia is planning to increase its exports by 20-25 percent per year. The economy of Uganda is expected to grow by 4.9 percent in 2005-06.