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In recent years Africa appears to have turned a corner economically. It is posting increased growth rates and is no longer the world's slowest growing region. Commentators are beginning to ask whether emerging from Africa is a new generation of 'lion' economies to challenge the East Asian 'tigers'? This book goes behind the headlines to examine the conditions necessary not just for growth in Africa but for a wider business and economic transformation. Contrary to neoliberal economics, it argues that governments can play an important role in this through selective interventions to correct market failures, and, controversially, that neo-patrimonial governance need not be an obstacle to improved business and economic conditions. Drawing on a variety of timely case studies - including Rwanda, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Ghana - this provocative book provides a radical new theory of the political and institutional conditions required for pro-poor growth in Africa.
This book offers a comprehensive introduction to the field of political settlements study.
When are developing countries able to initiate periods of rapid growth and why have so few been able to sustain growth over decades? This book provides a novel conceptual framework built from a political economy of business-government relations and applies it to nine countries across Africa and Asia, drawing actionable policy recommendations.
These readings in international relations in Africa grapple with the continent's changing place in the world. The essays confront issues such as the increasing tempo of armed conflict, the tendency of Western states and agencies to intervene in African settings, the presence of China, and the health of African states and their ability to participate in the global economy. Questions regarding sovereignty, leading regional actors, conflict and resolution, and the neoliberal African renaissance add to the broad thematic coverage presented in this timely volume.
This book focuses on how politics shapes the capacity and commitment of elites to tackle the learning crisis in six developing countries. It deploys a new conceptual framework to show how the type of political settlement shaptes the level of elite commitment and state capacity to improving learning outcomes.
Sub-Saharan Africa has achieved significant gains in reducing the levels of extreme poverty in recent decades. Yet, the region continues to experience challenges across the development indicators, including energy access, literacy, delivery of services and goods, and jobs skills, as well as low levels of foreign direct investment. Exacerbating the difficulties faced by many countries are the sequelae of conflict, such as internal displacement and refugee migration. Social Contracts for Development: Bargaining, Contention, and Social Inclusion in Sub-Saharan Africa builds on recent attention to the real-life social and political economy factors that underlie the power dynamic and determine th...
When Stephen Ellis died in July 2015, African Studies lost one of its most prolific, provocative and celebrated scholars. Given the scale and uniqueness of his contribution, it is perhaps surprising that a collection of his writings did not appear during his lifetime. It is now possible to bring such a volume to the public. With an introduction by Tim Kelsall and an afterword by Jean-François Bayart, this collection aims to provide scholars and students with an introduction to the main themes in Ellis' work. These revolved around the roles of religion, criminality and violence in African society and politics--preoccupations that also informed his interpretation of African rebellions and resistance movements. The volume spans more than three decades of scholarship; case studies from six countries; highly-cited and lesser-known articles; and a sampling of works intended for public engagement as well as an academic audience. It will serve as a reader for African Politics and History, and as an invitation to students to delve deeper into Stephen Ellis' oeuvre.
Drawing on the global experience of Oxfam, one of the world's largest social justice INGOs, this book tests ideas on 'How Change Happens' and sets out the latest thinking on how citizens and others can drive progressive change.
Improving the Sustainable Development Goals evaluates the Global Goals (Agenda 2030) by looking at their design and how they relate to theories of economic development. Adopted unanimously by the member states of the United Nations (UN) in 2015, the goals are remarkable for the global commitment on a set of targets to reach by 2030, but also for the lack of a strategy of implementation. The choice of appropriate action is handed over to individual governments, some of which are limited by their lack of resources. This book explores how implementation of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) can be developed, especially in developing countries. The content, strengths and weaknesses of the ...
Development analysts tend to give short shrift to the seemingly minor bureaucratic hitches faced by practitioners—those who design, manage, implement, and evaluate aid projects. Often critical of foreign aid either for its apparent ineffectiveness at alleviating poverty or its purported neocolonial implications, the academic literature rarely acknowledges the experiences and pressures faced by practitioners themselves as they implement aid-funded development projects—the meetings, paperwork, negotiations, site visits, financial transactions, logistical arrangements, interviews, program activities, and beneficiary interactions—that keep projects running. And yet the impact of aid projec...