Africa Cheetah Run
The Executive Secretary's Blog
Africa Cheetah Run
The rationale for much of the current discourse of the “African Moment” and “Africa Rising” is clear. Some of the fastest growing economies in the world are African. Africa has shown relative buoyancy in an era of economic crisis. While global growth declined by 2.7% last year, Africa bucked the trend and grew at 5%. Notably, all our sub-regions grew faster than the global average, with the highest rate being 6.3% and lowest one 3.5%. This performance was due to several factors including improved macroeconomic management, increased exports of natural resources and a rising middle class. Lagos now has a larger consumer market than Mumbai and spending in continental households exceeding those of India and Russia.
This growth experience is however not sufficient. It falls short of 7% which is the minimum required to double average incomes in a decade. This is partly due to the fact that far too many of our economies are dependent on the production and export of primary commodities. Far too many are highly unequal. As we celebrate the fact that seven of our countries are in the top ten of global growth we must also bear in mind that a similar number are in the top ten of global inequality. Indeed, far too many of our people remain in the grip of unrelenting hunger and poverty. Read more
Africa over the past 20 year has moved from a position of Afro pessimism through Afro optimism to a state of Afro enthusiasm. In Africa, we all like it but we should also ask why the narrative has changed so drastically? Is the new narrative coming from Africa? Partly yes. However most of what we hear is still an outside view and for good reason. The one who controls the information controls the narrative.
As much as we like to hear about Africa’s growth figures we should be also concerned about the quality of the data. Maybe the picture will be even better if we had good data but most likely less glamorous than it looks. The question is, can we verify the numbers behind telecoms, retail, banking, corruption, poverty and the like? What is the statistical basis for putting out these figures? And can they be corroborated by the facts on the ground?
In this twenty first century and this age of technology and innovation there is no excuse for Africa to do things the same way it did it fifty years ago. The use of mobile phones, internet, and new technology is growing at an incredible pace, part of moving the world into a data revolution. Read more
Development planning has a long and chequered history in Africa, and the continent’s development trajectory has been influenced by various approaches to development planning since the early stages of independence.
The first phase of development planning in Africa spanned the 1960s and was characterized by centralized planning with three to five year planning phases. During this period, at least 32 African countries had a national development plan. Read more
African countries are growing but have not been able to fulfil their industrial potential. This is due to a number of internal, external and historical reasons but mainly because of failure of policies, often imposed on Africa. Of particular note are the legacies of Africa’s colonialism which left institutions and infrastructure designed to enhance extraction of its resources and the externally imposed structural adjustment programmes which had particularly negative effects on technological accumulation, human capital development and manufacturing export performance. Read more