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Law and Development

Aid and Corruption

Submitted by Shanta on Thu, 2009-11-19 09:42

Many of the objections to my blog post, “Another reason why aid to Africa must increase”  centered around corruption.  “I disagree.  Africa needs to get rid of corruption…” said one commentator, while another said, “Aid to African countries must follow country steps in good governance, democracy, fighting corruption, etc.”

I think we can agree on the following two facts:

 

But even with these two facts, it doesn’t necessarily follow that aid should be cut off from countries with high corruption. 

Les Réussites Africaines

Submitted by Shanta on Wed, 2009-10-07 10:47

Ces dernières années, de nombreux pays africains ont commencé à faire preuve d’un dynamisme remarquable.

Le taux de croissance  enregistré au Mozambique est fulgurant, affichant une moyenne annuelle de 8 % sur plus de dix ans. Le Kenya est devenu l'un des plus importants fournisseurs mondiaux de fleurs coupées. Le service M-Pesa, qui permet d’effectuer des transferts d’argent à partir d’un téléphone mobile, rencontre un succès grandissant tandis que le programme KickStart aide les petits agriculteurs à irriguer leurs cultures à moindre coût. Le tourisme rwandais fleurit depuis qu’il s’est axé sur la vie des gorilles et dans la ville de Lagos au Nigéria, les nouvelles infrastructures du BRT (réseau de transport rapide par bus) facilite un développement urbain plus efficace. En deux mots, l’Afrique est en train de vivre une réelle transformation.

Crime and Punishment in Abidjan

Submitted by Shanta on Tue, 2009-09-01 14:58

The first-prize winner of the African Public Policy Awards was a paper by Jose Carlos Assi Kimou on the determinants of crime in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. 

Using rigorous statistical methods, the paper shows that crime in Abidjan (i) goes down as enforcement (measured by the number of policemen) goes up; (ii) goes up with negative external shocks, such as the 1994 devaluation of the CFA Franc and the 1999 coup d’état,

Can Zimbabwe Turn the Corner?

Submitted by Praveen Kumar on Mon, 2009-08-31 15:11

Much has changed in Zimbabwe since last November. There are signs of recovery following the return of price stability after full dollarization in January. However doubts about the political situation continue to obstruct further recovery.

The most visible sign of improvement is the demise of surreal hyperinflation which according to one estimate peaked at about 80 billion percent. Interestingly, full dollarization initially occurred not because the government chose it as a deliberate stabilization measure.  Exasperated residents simply abandoned the Zimbabwean dollar and moved on to using multiple hard currencies.  In January, the Government too abandoned the Zimbabwean dollar and started using the US Dollar and the South African Rand for both collecting taxes and spending.  Hyperinflation died a natural death in Zimbabwe, it was not tamed.