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MAY/JUNE 2008

Is It Africa's Turn?

Progress in the world's poorest region Edward Miguel

Things were certainly looking up when I last visited Busia, a small city in Kenya, in mid-2007. Busia, home to about 60,000 residents, spans Kenya’s western border with Uganda: half the town sits on the Kenyan side and half in Uganda. As befits a border town, Busia is well endowed with gas stations, seedy bars, and hotels catering to the truckers who spend the night on the way from Nairobi to Uganda.

When I visited last June, the city was experiencing an economic renaissance. Busia’s first supermarkets, ATMs, Internet cafés, and car rental businesses were all open, and residential suburbs had formed on the edge of town. The small dukas—shops selling home food supplies and airtime for now-omnipresent cell phones—were freshly painted with advertisements for local dairy products. And most importantly, the road from Kisumu, the economic hub of the region and Kenya’s third largest city, to Busia had become a paved, two-lane highway all the way to the border, expediting trade with Uganda’s productive factories and farmers.

Yet, barely a decade ago, poverty and desperation were pervasive there, as in all of western Kenya.

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Africa’s Turn?

Edward Miguel
Cloth / April 2009

“A refreshing take on the fortunes of Africa in the current century and a fascinating compendium of some of the leading theorists of African development.” — Publishers Weekly

By the end of the twentieth century, sub–Saharan Africa had experienced twenty–five years of economic and political disaster. While “economic miracles” in China and India raised hundreds of millions from extreme poverty, Africa seemed to have been overtaken by violent conflict and mass destitution, and ranked lowest in the world in just about every economic and social indicator.

Working in Busia, a small Kenyan border town, economist Edward Miguel began to notice something different starting in 1997: modest but steady economic progress, with new construction projects, flower markets, shops, and ubiquitous cell phones. In Africa’s Turn? Miguel tracks a decade of comparably hopeful economic trends throughout sub–Saharan Africa and suggests that we may be seeing a turnaround.

Responding to Miguel, nine experts gauge his optimism: Olu Ajakaiye, Ken Banks, Robert Bates, Paul Collier, Rachel Glennerster, Rosamond Naylor, Smita Singh, David N. Weil, and Jeremy M. Weinstein.


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Comments

1 |
Ms
A very interesting article. However, the "how" of foreign aid and the "for what" has not been even touched in this article. Some of those who are against foreign aid are probalby thinking in terms of dependency theory which has been studied much. Others may may have other reasons. Regardless, the question at this point should not have been aid vs. no aid but the how of aid, infrastructure building including better education. There should be no question that aid is necessary. The "how" of it is what needs emphasis. There are some proven practices that have worked in some places and I think they could be replicated with relevant modification.
— posted 05/16/2008 at 22:00 by A.M.
2 |
China in Africa
Interesting views on China in Africa
— posted 05/29/2008 at 17:52 by Flavio
3 |
The other side of the coin
"Kenya and its East African neighbors have benefited from coffee’s rise. Prices have been frothy, jumping from $41 per unit in 2001 to $113 in 2007. This increase puts more money in the pockets of coffee farmers, many of whom are smallholders." While your statement seems optimistic, the reality is very different. Black Gold (http://www.blackgoldmovie.com/) a documentary about Ethiopian coffee growers and their struggle to get more money from their crop. The true benieficiaries of higher coffee prices are companies like Starbucks and Nestle, not the subsistence farmer who grows the crop.

Many of the "democracies" you mention don't live up to their status, considerng how much corruption and how many human rights abuses take place.
— posted 06/01/2008 at 16:27 by Mike
4 |
The author left out a few things. Like freedom, individual rights and the rule of law. Freedom allows people to reap the fruits of their labor. Individual rights allows them to keep the profits and accumulate wealth. Wealth leads to economic growth. The rule of law levels the playing field for all market participants, creating many buyers and sellers. There is no political freedom without economic freedom.
— posted 06/06/2008 at 15:02 by jorod
5 |
Hmm
Difficult to take this entirely seriously when, in the sixth paragraph, the author says democratization appears to be taking root. Kenya's election shows democratization is not taking root at all -- the government stole an election it clearly lost.
— posted 06/10/2008 at 17:34 by Nick
6 |
Effectiveness of Aid
Agree with A.M. above. Also, I think that Easterly's message is too often misinterpreted. The levels of aid (which are relatively small and dwarved by the debt repayments from the global south) should not be the question. It is how it is delivered. Too often, it is programmed and implemented from far away, which greatly hinders recipient countries' ability to make the best of it. Corruption within recipient countries is often overblown, and donors take a paternalistic approach with their funds. It is time to let developing countries decide their own priorities.
— posted 07/15/2008 at 09:44 by Liz
7 |
The next big idea?
Rapid Conflict Prevention Support seems like an innovative idea. But ideas built on solid theory often don't play out as imagined. Is there any empirical evidence to support RCPS as a successful strategy? Surely you are not suggesting that we re-tool the foreign aid mechanisms based solely on anecdotes of Botswana. It is untested "bandwagon" ideas like this that have lead development assistance down so many wrong paths in the past.
— posted 09/05/2008 at 19:06 by Kelly
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About the Author

Edward Miguel is Associate Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. He is co-author of the upcoming Economic Gangsters: Corruption, Violence, and the Poverty of Nations.

Rosamond Naylor and Walter Falcon, Our Daily Bread

This is a feature article of a New Democracy Forum.
View responses to this article by:

Robert Bates
Ken Banks
Olu Ajakaiye
Rosamond Naylor
David N. Weil
Jeremy M. Weinstein
Smita Singh
Paul Collier
Rachel Glennerster

Edward Miguel offers his own response to the Forum here.


   



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