Is It Africa's Turn?
This forum has become a book by Boston Review Books
Available 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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Edward Miguel
"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. . . Yet, barely a decade ago, poverty and desperation were pervasive there, as in all of western Kenya."
Robert Bates
"Miguel overlooks some reasons for Africa’s new prosperity. And I am more skeptical than he concerning the stability of Africa’s politics and the quality of its governance."
Ken Banks
"African entrepreneurs are discovering that the current technological environment enables them to remove those shackles for themselves. They need not rely on a donor agency or international trade agreement to hand them the key."
Olu Ajakaiye
"The proposition that if the economic growth of the last seven years continues for another decade or two African economies will be richer and more diversified and thus less at risk of falling into conflict has the feel of mutatis mutandis."
Rosamond Naylor
"Any discussion about a sustained turnaround for the region must consider the rural sector. . . . There is no clearer evidence of the fragility of sub-Saharan Africa’s economic progress than the current global food crisis."
David N. Weil
"Rapid population growth raises the stakes for African governments . . . The most obvious dimension is food. Africa already skates along the edge of food shortage."
Jeremy M. Weinstein
"Most African countries today hold regular elections . . . . Yet it has been frustratingly difficult for social scientists to find robust evidence of democracy’s economic dividends."
Smita Singh
"Elections in and of themselves need not force leaders to be responsive to the public good; electoral competition can drive political parties into patronage instead."
Paul Collier
"There is a process at work that does not depend on democracy and is so simple that analysts generally miss it: learning from mistakes."
View Collier's 2008 TED Talk about third world development.
Rachel Glennerster
"Before we get carried away about Chinese investment it is worth noting that the entire stock of Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in Africa in 2005 was just one tenth of the flow of new FDI from the United Kingdom into Africa the previous year."
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