Reform In sub-Saharan Africa Research Articles

Political liberation and economic policy reform in Africa

This paper assesses the impact of political liberalization on economic reform in sub-Saharan Africa. It argues that the emergence of more participatory politics will not necessarily make successful reform less likely. Although the instability of political change will exact an economic cost in the short run, in the long run, political liberalization provides opportunities as well as risks for economic reform. It probably makes some macroeconomic reforms more difficult, but it provides a window of opportunity for significant progress on governance issues. The net impact will vary across states; in most countries, the prospects for economic reform will not be dramatically altered, because political reform does not alter some of the structural characteristics of economic policy making in Africa.

Structural adjustment, primary resource trade and sustainable development in sub-Saharan Africa

The food shortages, growing indebtedness and the appalling environmental crisis in sub-Saharan Africa cannot be understood in isolation from the strategies of development policies in the area of African governments have followed since independence. While adjustment policies in the area of pricing, exchange rates, public sector reform and liberalization of markets are some of the essential ingredients of a balanced national strategy, conventional International Monetary Fund/ World Bank prescriptions have often resulted in negative social and ecological effects. These short-term policies, designed to improve commodity exports to generate foreign exchange, often conflict with long-term development needs. Scarce land, water, credit and technology are being preempted by the export sector while the needs of small farmers in the areas of soil conservation, reforestation and food security are ignored. For sustainable development to occur, there must be a fundamental reorientation of government policies and resources toward solving rural problems. Land reform, credit, improved extension, greater government accountability, and people's participation are important prerequisites if poor farmers are to succeed. Further, policy reform in sub-Saharan Africa needs to be backed by improved measures to compensate for shortfalls in commodity export earnings caused by factors outside their control. Finally, significant debt write offs by bilateral and multilateral agencies are a sine qua non if sub-Saharan Africa is to resume a steady path of development.

Evaluating agricultural price policy under dual market regimes and institutional constraints

A recursive, multi-region, multi-commodity model emphasizing interaction between official and private markets is proposed to evaluate agricultural policy reforms in Sub-Saharan Africa. Supply is estimatd by linear programming representative farm models incorporating private and official market incentives, and official procurement and input rations. Demand is represented by a modified linear expenditure system incorporating rationed official supplies. A linear complementarity problem calculates the private market equilibrium subject to official market outcomes and institutional constraints. Results from a case study of Burkina Faso show that reforms improve agricultural performance, but depend on cotton exports to pay for fertilizer. Relaxing institutional constraints, such as foreign exchange allocations for fertilizer imports and capacity of official marketing systems, will be crucial for meeting reform objectives.

Central Agencies, State Capacity and the Current Wave of Structural Adjustment Reforms in Sub-Saharan Africa

Central Agencies, State Capacity and the Current Wave of Structural Adjustment Reforms in Sub-Saharan Africa

Policy reforms in sub-Saharan Africa: Conditions for establishing a dialogue

Third World debt continues to be a critical and intractable issue. A particularly interesting aspect of the story is the effort by external donors and lenders to promote specific policy changes in exchange for assistance in dealing with indebtedness and promoting economic development. This study looks at the interactions between donors and decision-makers in sub-Saharan African countries, an area where donors rather than private banks play a dominant role. Donors have been learning from the uneven response to the reforms and are attempting to tailor the reforms somewhat to different contexts and to encourage more consultations. To succeed in these efforts they need to reexamine their view of analysis as a purely technocratic exercise among experts. They can learn from recent changes in the policy sciences, here called an interactive approach to policy analysis. It makes three assumptions: policy relevant knowledge includes time and space information and is diffused; participants can reason together and learn from each other; and there is a need for procedures and institutions to facilitate interaction and learning. The study explores the assumptions implicit in donor actions and proposes that an interactive approach, with its more open-ended perspective on knowledge, can stimulate greater dialogue and expand the kinds of information that are fed into the process.

Africa's development challenges and the World Bank: hard questions, costly choices

Part 1 The World Bank view: what can be done in Africa? the World Bank response, Edward Jaycox policy reforms and economic development in Tanzania, Nguyuru Lipumba impact of the World Bank supported development project on rural women in Zambia, Monica Munachonga. Part 2 Donor policy - the challenges of reform: issues of political economy in formulating donor policy toward Sub-Saharan Africa, Robert Christiansen et al the political basis for agricultural policy reform, Robert Bates food aid and policy-based lending to Africa - dilemmas for states and donors, Raymond Hopkins. Part 3 African perspectives: political economy and policy reform in Sub-Saharan Africa, Carol Lancaster bureaucratic growth and economic stagnation in Sub-Saharan Africa, David Ebernethy structural adjustment in the longer run - some uncomfortable questions, Charles Elliott.

International Financial Institutions and Economic Policy Reform in Sub-Saharan Africa

Since the 1979 oil shock and in the course of the subsequent world recession, many African governments have dramatically altered the orientation of their economic policies. States previously committed to various brands of ‘African socialism’ have been ending subsidies, reducingde factotaxes on agricultural producers, ‘privatising’ previously state-run activities, adopting more liberal exchange-rate policies, and implementing numerous other ‘market-oriented’ reforms.