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As a sub-Saharan country, Mauritius has been branded a success story in terms of its sustained economic growth performance, with major improvements in the living standards of its population at large over the past few decades. This paper has the objectives of revisiting this success story, essentially by analyzing the numerous policies that have been adopted, to provide insights into Africa's policy options. The Mauritian case study demonstrates that no single dose of economic reforms may generate growth dividends to perpetuity, especially when the current economic environment differs from initial conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ideology of neo-liberalism is currently dominant at the elite level. This has profound implications for how development is viewed as best pursued. Currently, a process of regionalization projects, at both the macro- and micro-level, are reconfiguring parts of Africa as the continent's elites seek to promote economic integration as a means of latching onto what is perceived as the globalization juggernaut. However, such processes, and the case of the Maputo Development Corridor (MDC) is provided as a case study, cannot simply be defined as top-down projects to reconfigure spatial areas along neo-liberal lines: globalization and regionalization stimulates reactions involving the re-organization and re-territorialization of spaces in order to meet the challenges posed. Though existing regionalist projects, such as the MDC, reflect the impulses of a neo-liberal world, space for contesting alternatives exists and is nascent, with counter-reactions being continually generated, with diverse forms of regional connectivities being constructed. Analyses of the new regionalisms must be cognisant of such pregnancy within such ongoing processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]