Appraising the Good Enough Governance Agenda and State-Led Development: Towards Achieving Private Sector Development in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

The general implementation of the millennium development goals (MDGs) has achieved great success in sub-Saharan Africa lately but the concern is whether the 2015 target is feasible in this region. No doubt, international agencies and donors have been putting their best to ensure that the eight agenda of the MDGs are met but these efforts have been undermined by the authorities in recipient countries. The termites that weaken the strength of these goals are mainly the governments and peoples of sub-Saharan Africa. The World Bank's seeks to pursue entire institutional reforms almost at the same time which is probably why it is hardly getting the desired result. The enough tends to be more realistic acknowledging country-specific circumstances and stressing on implementing only those policies that are easily workable before graduating to addressing more problematic issues. On the other hand, the performance of governance would have a direct relationship with its ability to direct or motivate development. This paper appraises the realities concerning the good enough governance agenda in line with developmental states or state-led development which is the foundation of private sector development for the underdeveloped economies of sub-Saharan Africa and thus to be able to hit the 2015 target. In this light, neopatrimonialism and ethnolinguistic diversity are observed to have led to gross corruption in the form of state capture, rent seeking behaviour and capital flight. These would need to be effectively checked so as to convert these fragile and failed states to enough developing economies.