AfricaCan End Poverty
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March 2012

When are macroeconomic stability and exceptionally high returns not enough for private investors?

Sandeep Mahajan's picture

South Africa appears to be mired in a cycle of modest growth, high inequality and record unemployment. This, despite an exemplary record on macroeconomic management and deepening integration with the global economy. 

Inflation remains nestled within the target range of 3-6 percent and fiscal and debt management outcomes have been impressive.

Remarkably, there is broad political consensus on the issue of macroeconomic stability, recent calls for a looser stance by the labor unions notwithstanding. 

A sustained pattern of high, broad-based and inclusive growth is yet to emerge, however.  Despite a pick-up in per capita GDP growth from negative rates to an average of 1.6 percent per year during 1994-2011, per capita GDP is currently only 10 percent higher than in 1980: a period over which other developing countries have seen much more meaningful increases in their income levels.

Kenya’s tourism – Still an unpolished diamond

Wolfgang Fengler's picture

When I first came to Kenya, in August 1990, I was a backpacker on a shoestring budget. At midcourse between Cape-town and Cairo, I got accommodation at the New Kenya Lodge in River Road for US$ 2.50. After spending two nights there, I continued to Garissa and Liboi, heading to Somalia.

In 1994, I returned with my wife, and in downtown Nairobi, urban chaos and poverty struck her so much, that she was reluctant to come back 15 years later, when I was offered a job.

Today, I enjoy the full beauty of Kenya with my family, and we all agree—my wife included!—that this is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. If you created an index of "natural beauty per square-kilometer" Kenya would probably come up on top of the list. Starting from Nairobi, within a few hours of driving, you enjoy the most amazing nature: the Masai Mara, Mt Kilimanjaro, Mt Kenya, and Lake Victoria, are all within reach. Nairobi is surprisingly pleasant, with one of the best climates in the world: it is one of the few cities where you neither need air-conditioning nor heating—all year long (well, it will soon get “cold” in July but the fireplace will help).

Tanzania can benefit from natural gas by empowering people

Jacques Morisset's picture

If you are looking for a house in Dar es Salaam, hurry up. With the recent discovery of massive natural gas reserves, affordable houses will soon become a rarity. The cost of living in African countries with abundant natural resources (Angola, Gabon, etc) is among the highest in the world. Today Tanzania sits on about 15 trillion cubic feet of proven natural gas reserves, equivalent to approximately US$150 billion at current prices, or 6 times Tanzania's current GDP.

These proved and potential reserves can be a game changer for Tanzania. Yet, extracting and producing is not a simple affair. Massive up-front investments (larger than the country’s current GDP of US$22 billion) and new technologies are necessary, while benefits will typically spread over 25 to 30 years. Short of cash and expertise, Tanzania will have to partner with global companies. Potential candidates (British Gas, Statoil) are already knocking on the door.

Is mobile technology over-hyped?

Gabriel Demombynes's picture

At an event at the New America Foundation in DC  and in a recent article in Slate, Sascha Meinrath and Jamie Zimmerman argue that mobile technology in general and mobile money in particular have been overhyped as game-changing tools for the poor.

They claim that mobile technology “creates a greater economic divide” and that Kenya’s M-PESA mobile money system is “leaving a substantial portion of the nation’s poor in even more dire straits.”

Tavneet Suri and Billy Jack and separately Kevin Donovan have already beaten me to the counterpunch with cogent rebuttals. Here’s my own two cents:

100% pass rate in South Africa’s township schools?

Sandeep Mahajan's picture

Residents of the pukka houses (formerly temporary shacks) in front of the apartment complex where my family lives in New Delhi have decided to send their kids to private, English-medium schools, cutting corners to save enough to be able to afford it.

How to kick-start Kenya’s second growth engine

Wolfgang Fengler's picture

Last year, Kenya’s economy was behaving like a plane flying through a storm on one engine. After a lot of turbulence, especially when the shilling reached a record low against the dollar, the Central Bank intervened forcefully, and brought the plane back to stability.

But Kenya’s exchange rate woes are just the tip of the iceberg (see figure). Kenya’s big challenge is to reduce the gap between the import bill and exports revenues, what economists call the “current account deficit” (which remains large, even when services—such as tourism—are included). Last year, the deficit reached more than ten percent of GDP, approximately Ksh 400 billion (US$ 4.5 billion). This is larger than Greece’s.

Rewarding safe sex

Damien de Walque's picture

Prevention strategies have had limited impact on the trajectory of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. New, innovative approaches to behavioral change are needed to stem the epidemic.

In a joint effort with many colleagues, and in collaboration with the Ifakara Health Institute in Tanzania and, the University of California at Berkeley, we launched a study with the acronym RESPECT (“Rewarding STI Prevention and Control in Tanzania”).

We started with an observation:  Conditional cash transfers (CCTs) have been used successfully to promote activities that are beneficial to the participants such as school attendance  and health check-ups for children.  The Tanzanian experiment asks whether CCTs can be used to prevent people from engaging in activities that are harmful to themselves and others, such as unsafe sex. This is a controversial idea.

Africa is rising - is poverty falling?

Shanta's picture

Several people, from The Economist to this blog, have been highlighting Africa's accelerated GDP growth of about 5 percent a year for the decade before the 2008-9 global economic crisis, and the two years since the crisis. But has this growth served to reduce poverty?

The latest globally consistent estimate of poverty rates has an answer: Yes. 

Using the measure of people living on $1.25 a day or less, the World Bank's poverty measurement team, led by my colleague Martin Ravallion, estimates that the percentage of poor Africans fell from 58 percent in 1999 to 47.5 percent in 2008.  This rate of decline of about one percentage point a year is a welcome change from the previous decade when growth was much slower and the poverty rate increased. 

Stabilizing Somalia - the development moment

Aurelien Kruse's picture

The gathering of world leaders in London last week to consider the fate of Somalia may be heralding a new development moment for the war-torn country. But we are in unchartered waters: we know very little about Somalia’s economy.

First, from a development viewpoint, there is no such thing as one Somalia. Ironically, the unrecognized Somaliland entity [see the Somaliland success story in “Yes Africa Can” ] has enjoyed stability and democratic governance, pursuing classic development interventions (service delivery through the state, infrastructure investment, capacity building …). [In addition, Somaliland appears to have very good statistics.]

By contrast, South Central Somalia, where the capital city and official -albeit transition- government of Somalia are located, is a quintessential failed state plagued by conflict and public mismanagement. Puntland lies somewhere in between, with some stability but an embryonic state under growing influence of piracy networks.

Tanzania’s Steep Learning Curve

Stevan Lee's picture

Tanzania has shown massive achievements in education – well known progress in primary enrolment plus less well known, but in some ways even more spectacular, growth in post-primary education. 

Yet, Tanzania needs to improve learning outcomes if a virtuous cycle of growth and human capital investment is to be sustained. This is “The Steep Learning Curve” which Tanzania needs to get onto with modest fiscal resources but a rapidly growing number of new students, and therefore with a keen eye for value. This should be possible.