Africa’s Rise a Myth?
In his recent Foreign Policy article, Rick Rowden makes the case that Africa’s low levels of manufacturing and industrialisation suggest the continent is not the ‘growth miracle’ that some commentators...
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How real is Africa’s development?
Are the days of gloating about Africa’s irresistible rise behind us? Last month’s debate in Foreign Policy about the continent’s growth performance – is Africa’s rise myth or reality? – seems to have...
View ArticleAfrica and India
In the dying days of the immediate post-war period, India led the way in the fight for decolonization. Much of Africa followed suit a decade later. It is no exaggeration to say that India’s struggle...
View ArticleA global social protection fund?
Olivier de Schutter, the UN’s special rapporteur on the right to food, is consistently interesting and provocative. This call to action is currently circulating on the interwebs (although the paper...
View ArticleSweet and sour ― China’s promises to Africa
The UNDP Human Development Report 2013, titled “The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World’ points to the impact of the so-called emerging economies – foremost China – on resource rich...
View ArticleAfrica’s industrialisation is not a choice, it is an imperative!
African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Development met in Abidjan at the end of last month. Intensive discussions emphasised the imperative to reverse the economic quagmire of the past decades by...
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Making the most of Africa’s growth momentum
For a decade and a half now, Africa has been growing robustly, and the region’s economic prospects remain good. In per capita terms, GDP has expanded at 2.4 percent per year, good for an average...
View ArticleThree trends in African development
The assumptions and ideas that drive development policy are never static, but the rise of non-traditional donors and non-Western economic powers has accelerated the pace of change in recent years. In...
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China-Africa Cooperation Is Unique
There is now a heated debate about China’s development finance to Africa due to the recent publication of a media-based database and a working paper. I was invited as the discussant at the recent...
View ArticleSweden can Increase Trade with Africa
Five Swedish ministers recently returned home from the World Economic Forum in Cape Town and the largest Government trek ever, on a ministerial level, to Africa. Ethiopia, Nigeria, Angola and Zimbabwe...
View ArticleAssessing Africa-China Cooperation
The Belgian NGO coalition 11.11.11 has published an interesting paper summarizing the views of 58 African civil society organizations in 11 different countries on ‘South South Cooperation’ (SSC) –...
View ArticleThe G-20 and Africa
Global economic governance has become more complex over the past 20 years. The range of issues that require global co-ordination now include topics that were once viewed as falling exclusively within...
View ArticleWhat can Africa learn from Scandinavian social policies?
The popularity of cash transfers as the preferred form of social protection across African states in recent years raises the question of how best these should be modelled for the most effective...
View ArticleZimbabwe—leaving older persons behind?
The wellbeing of older persons in Zimbabwe is a growing concern, especially those suffering from the negative impact on their pensions and savings following the demise of the Zimbabwe dollar. Despite...
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