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African Successes

Submitted by Shanta on Thu, 2009-09-17 11:44

In recent years, a broad swath of African countries has begun to show a remarkable dynamism.  From Mozambique’s impressive growth rate (averaging 8% p.a. for more than a decade) to Kenya’s emergence as a major global supplier of cut flowers, from M-pesa’s mobile phone-based cash transfers to KickStart’s low-cost irrigation technology for small-holder farmers, and from Rwanda’s gorilla tourism to Lagos City’s Bus Rapid Transit system, Africa is seeing a dramatic transformation.  This favorable trend is spurred by, among other things, stronger leadership, better governance, an improving business climate, innovation, market-based solutions, a more involved citizenry, and an increasing reliance on home-grown solutions.  More and more, Africans are driving African development. 

The global economic crisis of 2008-09 threatens to undermine the optimism that Africa can harness this dynamism for long-lasting development.  In light of this, it might be useful to re-visit recent achievements.  The African Successes study aims to do just that.

The study will identify a wide range of development successes (see list), from which around 20 cases will be selected for in-depth study.  The analysis of each successful experience will evaluate the following: (1) the drivers of success—what has worked and why; (2) the sustainability of the successful outcome(s); and (3) the potential for scaling up successful experiences.  African success stories offer valuable insights and practical lessons to other countries in the region. 

I welcome your comments and suggestions for success stories. Click here to see the list of what we have come up with so far.

How to grow the private sector in Africa

Submitted by Shanta on Mon, 2008-11-10 13:47

I gave the Jerome A.Chazen lecture at Columbia Business School the other day. The gist of my talk was that:

  • Despite relatively rapid economic growth, private investment in Africa is still relatively low
  • The proximate reasons are poor infrastructure, weak skills and a host of policy and institutional impediments (such as business regulations and trade restrictions.
  • Underlying each of these proximate reasons is some government failure. Transport infrastructure, for instance, is constrained by poor regulation that generates monopoly profits for trucking companies but keeps Africa’s transport prices the highest in the world; poor skills derive from nearly dysfunctional tertiary education systems; and many of the regulations are difficult to remove for political reasons. The few private-sector success stories in Africa (Kenya horticulture, Lesotho garments, Rwanda tourism) all got around these government failures; they have not spread economy-wide.
  • The key to enhanced private sector growth in Africa, therefore, is government leadership that removes the underlying obstacles to infrastructure, skills development and entrepreneurship.

There was a lively discussion after the lecture, although I got the impression that most of the audience was broadly sympathetic to my approach. I wonder if the same is true of readers of this blog.