Economic Growth and Development in Africa: Understanding trends and prospects

315 Pages·2014·1.52 MB·English

by  Horman Chitonge

Economic Growth and Development
in Africa
In recent years Africa has undergone the longest period of sustained economic
growth in the continent’s history, drawing the attention of the international media
and academics alike. This book analyses the Africa Rising narrative (ARN) from
multidisciplinary perspectives, offering a critical assessment of the explanations
given for the poor economic growth and development performance in Africa
prior to the millennium, and the dramatic shift towards the new Africa.
Bringing in perspectives from African intellectuals and scholars, many of
whom have previously been overlooked in this debate, the book examines the
construction of Africa’s economic growth and development portraits over the
years. It looks at two institutions that play a vital role in African development,
providing a detailed explanation of how the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) have interpreted and dealt with the African challenges
and experiences. The insightful analysis reveals that if Africa is rising, only 20–30
per cent of Africans are aboard the rising ship, and the main challenge facing
the continent today is to bring on board the majority of Africans who have been
excluded from growth.
This book makes the complex, and sometimes confusing, debates on Africa’s
economic growth experience more accessible to a wide range of readers interested
in the Africa story. It is essential reading for students and researchers in African
Studies, and will be of great interest to scholars in Development Studies, Political
Economy, and Development Economics.
Horman Chitonge is a senior researcher at the Centre for African Studies,
University of Cape Town, South Africa. He holds a PhD in Development Studies
from the University of KwaZulu-Natal and has taught development theory and
policy on Africa at various African universities. His research interests include
access to water and land, poverty, and alternatives for Africa’s economic growth
and transformation.
Routledge Studies in African Development
Self-Determination and Secession
in Africa
The post-colonial state
Edited by Redie Bereketeab
Economic Growth and Development
in Africa
Understanding trends and prospects
Horman Chitonge
Economic Growth and
Development in Africa
Understanding trends and prospects
Horman C hitonge
First published 2015
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2015 Horman Chitonge
The right of Horman Chitonge to be identifi ed as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in
any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation without intent to
infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Chitonge, Horman, author.
Economic growth and development in Africa: understanding trends
and prospects / Horman Chitonge.
pages cm
1. Economic development–Africa. 2. Africa–Economic conditions. I. Title.
HC800.C494 2015
338.96–dc23
2014029397
ISBN: 978-1-138-82680-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-73896-3 (ebk)
Typeset in Goudy
by Out of House Publishing
Contents
List of fi gures v i
List of tables vii
Foreword i x
Acknowledgements xii
List of acronyms x iii
1 Introduction: in search of the ‘Africa dummy’ 1
2 The World Bank and the IMF in Africa: the project-lending era 36
3 The Bank and the IMF in Africa: the SAPs and beyond 65
4 Africa’s economic growth experience in empirical growth studies 111
5 The state and development in Africa 1 42
6 The political economy of Africa’s economic growth and
development experience 180
7 Africa Rising: changing fortunes or another ‘false start’? 223
8 African intellectuals and the African growth and development
challenges 256
Appendices 289
Index 294
Figures
4.1 Gross National Income (GNI) per capita of SSA and
high-income countries 1 32
6.1 The trend in Africa’s terms of trade (1980–2010) 211
7.1 GDP and GDP per capita growth for Africa (2000–2014) 241
8.1 Civil society, the state and the economy 2 57
Tables
1.1 GDP per capita and GDP growth dynamics in Africa
(1960–2010) 19
1.2 Average per capita growth rates and coeffi cient of variation 21
2.1 SSA countries eligible for IDA and GNP per capita (2010) 41
2.2 World Bank memberships for African countries (1947–1996) 49
2.3 Mean annual IBRD and IDA lending to SSA (1960–1994, %) 57
2.4 World Bank lending to SSA by sector (2004–2009, US$ million) 58
3.1 World Bank major reports/studies on Africa (1980–2011) 73
3.2 Agricultural productivity (1990–1992 and 2005–2007, in 2000
US$ per worker) 89
3.3 Labour productivity, agricultural population and vulnerable
employment for SSA 90
3.4 HIPC countries in SSA (2011) 9 9
4.1 Ethnolinguistic fractionalisation indices for selected countries 118
6.1 Three major export products and diversifi cation index for
selected African countries 212
7.1 Selected macroeconomic indicators for Africa (2000–2011) 242
7.2 Basic social indicators for Africa (1990–2010) 2 43
7.3 Africa’s savings, capital formation, investment ratios, value
added (1980–2010, %) 243
7.4 Capital fl ight from SSA (1970–2010) 244
7.5 The composition of exports for selected SSA countries
(2000–2005, %) 246
7.6 Agricultural share in labour force for selected African countries
(2000–2010) 247
7.7 The ratio of working poor in selected African countries (2009) 248
7.8 Human capital and research investment in comparative terms 248
7.9 Growth, poverty and inequality trends in Africa’s fastest growing
economies 249
8.1 Generations of African intellectuals 2 67
viii List of tables
Appendix I Africa’s decadal mean GDP per capita growth rates
(1960–2012, %) 289
Appendix II Africa’s decadal mean GDP per capita (US$, current
prices, 1960–2012) 291
Appendix III Africa’s mean decadal GDP growth rates (1960–
2012, %) 292
Foreword
T his book is the product of an extended period of refl ecting on Africa’s economic
growth and development performance over the past six decades. Although this
refl ection started a long time back, it was a 2000 World Bank publication entitled
Can Africa Claim the 21st Century? which stirred my interest in the topic more
poignantly. What caught my attention in this publication was the report that,
excluding South Africa, the total output for all 47 countries that constituted
Sub-Saharan Africa in 2000 was slightly less than Belgium’s Gross Domestic
Product (GDP) – and that the median GDP for countries in the sub-continent
was just US$2 billion, “about the output of a town of 60000 in a rich country”
(World Bank, 2000 : 7).
When I read this, I stopped for a while to think about the various implications
of this comparison, and my mind could not accommodate well the idea that Sub-
Saharan Africa, with its 616.1 million people (excluding South Africa’s popu-
lation of 42.8 million), produced fewer goods and services (valued at US$196.8
billion in 2000) than Belgium (US$222.7 billion) with its population of just
9.8 million people. One way of looking at this is that in 2000 there were 63
Africans for every Belgian, and assuming that all the people contributed to pro-
ducing the respective outputs, this means that, on average, one Belgian produced
more than what 63 Sub-Saharan Africans produced. These proportions, despite
the challenges associated with the data on which these estimates are derived 1 , are
astounding, and should make the curious reader pause to refl ect a little more on
the meaning beyond just the naked numbers. Of course this comparison becomes
even more staggering if we look at Sub-Saharan Africa in comparison to big
countries and economies such as the USA, Germany, France, Japan and Italy.
F or the many people who read the report, both within and outside Africa,
there was nothing unusual about the numbers; it was common knowledge that
Sub-Saharan Africa’s economies had been declining since the 1970s, and there-
fore it was not surprising that the combined output of the more than 600 million
Sub-Saharan Africans was actually less than that of Belgium’s ten million people.
Analysts and lay people alike have become so used to the idea of an African
economic tragedy, failure and crisis that nothing appears unusual as far as Africa
is concerned. When it comes to Africa, many people perform a super ‘normal-
isation’ act without the slightest probe. Such attitudes are often reinforced by