Have a look on:
A Regional Perspective on the Post 2015
http://www.unfoundation.org/assets/pdf/regional-commissions-report.pdf
I have assessed the success of 143 countries in economic and social issues in my recent book (attached below). As in the other continents, also African countries differ very much from each other. A detailed assessment for every included African country can be found in pages 286-313 and a general assessment of the continent in pages 231-233. If needed, tables with data for every country can be loaded from RG. Questions related to change and development are dealed in pages 206-226.
Book Missing a Decent Living for Everyone: Success and Failure in...
Among many other things, hopefully some of which will come up here, I think there are efforts to empirically demonstrate connections between MDGs in order to develop abilities in exercises to take advantage of complementarities in activities which contribute to more than one goal at the same time in order to achieve increased efficiency in meeting multiple targets (school canteens, for example, contribute directly to improved nutrition, mortality, education, and remaining income of a family - especially if their labour contribution is worth less than the value of their lunch at school) .
I think there is awareness of this, and also that no estimation method will be perfect, and there is also awareness that the magnitude and nature of these complementarities over time differ/vary from one place to the next for a great number of reasons (probably a handful of obvious and simple ones are dominant, however). However, I do not think that this has always led to the sorts of constructive cooperation between different levels of government and across different ministries and levels of activity in public and private sectors to align this planning to optimally account for positive externalities, for example that good governance may improve tax compliance which underlies sustainability of physical and human capital investments in the long run, for example.
So, Nathan, you believe that the responsability of growing in Africa is exclusive of african governments? Or the role of donors must be increased due to the claimed lack of good governance? I've done a work about this - that I'm translating to english - and I found many problems related to the role of donors in this process.
The backbone of Africa development is "Human development" . However, the classical debate for development is usually put on the economic development shoulder. This complicated debate had been discussed and many text books and articles have been published and still Africa is lagging behind?? The dilemma is how to break the vicious cycle of POVERTY? Since both human and economic developments are involved, then we have to hold on the bottle neck of the factors that disrupted the development process. What are these evoking factors: are these political instability and the related factors include corruption, lack of technology, global policy, the notion of "African the isolated people", the historical socio-racial background; and many other crucial integrated reasons that contributed on Africa socio-economic underdevlopment.
BUT, Are there some sutiable solutions? Are the solutions will be applicable for all African countries or regions. What criteria do we need to apply for such reformation policies and strategies ???
Hello Amira, thank you for your opinion... and your doubts. There are still problems on defining "development", a term that I believe is misused by many academics and researchers. When we talk about development we cannot dissociate human, social or economics factors, all together are one, so the question imposed is: which are the diferences between growth and development? In Africa this question is vital to discuss wich are the proper ways to reach the MDGs, and wich is the role of donors to solve problems such as poverty.
Japan, throught the TICAD Process (Tokyo International Conferences on African Development) has been able to bring back the top donors of Africa in the 1980s into the discussion, so I believe that there are answers to african needs.
Honestly, I am not a supporter of MDGs. Why? I believe that true development begins at the grassroots--effective development goals can only be developed through a bottom-up, participatory, inclusive, and people-driven process. To promote genuine development in Africa, for example, requires that the leaders of each African country engage their relevant stakeholders fully and effectively in the process of designing and implementing policies for poverty alleviation. It is only through such a bottom-up and inclusive approach that one can come up with strategies that reflect the interests, values, traditions, and customs of the people. After all, development, as Professor Sen has argued, involves much more than increases in income. Who can best define those values that are crucial to the individual's well-being? The individual himself or herself--hence, the need to begin at the grassroots.
Dr. Mbaku, thank you for your answer.
I do agree with you when you say that Africa should start to be development within Africa's roots, however I understand that African leaders are far too much attached to the financial aid brought by donors (China an Japan are good examples).
By the other hand african roots were ripped off by colonization, there is a need of recovering the lost parts of african culture.
Hello F. Saitote: It is true that many African leaders are opportunistic and engage primarily in public policies that promote their own personal interests, which include what economists call primitive accumulation. Foreign aid provides an opportunity for them to accumulate extra-legal wealth. Nevertheless, such corrupt leaders can be pushed out (as occurred in Egypt, Tunisia, and Burkina Faso) and the country's institutions reformed and restructured to provide institutional arrangements that adequately constrain those who serve in government. The process is gradual but many Africans are realizing that they do not have to continue to submit to opportunistic and despotic leaders anymore. Unfortunately, once these leaders are chased out of government, the necessary state reconstruction to produce institutional arrangements that guarantee the rule of law is not being undertaken. As a consequence, the new leaders are able to act with impunity, the same way that their predecessors did. All is not lost, especially when you consider the fact that after apartheid was dethroned in South Africa, the new government, headed by Nelson Mandela, was able to lead South Africans in their successful efforts to reconstruct and reconstitute the state and today, the country has one of the most progressive constitutions in the world. Other African countries are making progress--consider Ghana, Rwanda, and Cape Verde. I am optimistic.
I understand your optimism, and I share it. Nevertheless I still believe that the development in Africa has a long way to follow.
I'm a Master in African Studies and my studies are based in development more expressively in the path taken by Japan to assist Africa, following the patterns used in Asia. At the moment Japan is one of the closest partners of Africa, and their policy towards the continent includes social, cultural and economic development, among other issues, some results are starting to be notest and Japan, through TICAD is making it possible to reach some of the MDGs, alowwing african countries to maintain their ownership. The aid provided is more technical then economic, wich gives Africa a great balance to aim their goals.
The MDGs, wether you like them or not, are a starting point to achieve a notorious equillibrium between developed and underdeveloped countries (whatever it may means). More, japanese intervention in Africa goes beyhond the self interest of japannese, there is an altruist component linked with it.
I am sorry to disagree with you, but the MDGs, like other externally orchestrated policies, do not really have much relevance for a lot of countries or communities in Africa. Newly-developed countries such as South Korea, did not achieve their levels of development by relying on externally developed policy goals. South Korea's development and to a great extent, that of the People's Republic of China, can be traced to internally constructed policies, those that were fully cognizant of each country's specificities, its common historical experiences, its areas of comparative advantage, etc. A country cannot achieve genuine development by relying on externally generated policy initiatives.
Most African countries follow the MGDs in order to have access to foreign resources and not necessarily because they believe that these policies are necessarily consistent with local values and aspirations. Of course, this is not the first time the international community has tried to impose policy on the African countries. Do you recall the IMF and World Bank initiated structural adjustment programs (SAPs)? Despite the fact that many African governments embraced them with a lot of enthusiasm, they did not provide many benefits for the people. Instead, the people who benefited from them were the elites who were charged with implementing them. The MGDs are not any different.
Like the SAPs, a lot of the foreign actors who support the MGDs and actually supply African countries with the resources to implement them are not doing so for purely humanitarian reasons. Perhaps, you are not aware, but there is a new scramble for Africa and many developed countries, including China (PRC), Japan, the United States, and the European Union, as well as South Korea, are seeking ways to improve their trade and investment in Africa. This is the true reason for the renewed interest in partnerships between these external actors and Africa. Such partnerships are not likely to benefit Africa if their definition remains essentially the purview of foreign actors.
Dr., I have to agree with you in many things, however i must say that the solution for an african plan of development has to be the end of aid dependence. When in the 1980s the IMF and IBRD imposed such reforms to Africa, it was clear that they would never result - actually is the same thing, no matter if it is in Africa or in any other part of the world - for many reasons: unready governments, slow economy, extreme demands, among others.
It is true that aid is not an altruist mechanism of development, there are allways interests connected with it, but Africa, as the rest of the so called underdeveloped world, need that aid, and it must no be given just as money, financial support. I'd say that the needs of Africa, Asia, Europe, America are all the same, it's to improve themselves, not to see who pays more.
So I believe that the MDGs, as goals and not as imposed policies, are necessary in a global point of view. There must be objectives.
I may say that Africa's ownership starts on a global process, but I do agree that such process, in each different case, needs a push from every single country of Africa. African governments can´t just say that they need money to apply on education, on health, and so on, African countries must be the foundations to capitalize the external aid (humanitarian, technical, scholar or financial).
African countries do not really need foreign financial assistance or development aid. More resources flow out of Africa--both legally and illegally--than flow into the continent. The main problem is that many African countries do not have institutional arrangements that enhance the utilization of available resources for national development. In fact, it is the case in many African countries that foreign economies offer better and more secure opportunities for investment than domestic economies. Hence, the significant amounts of capital flight, which also includes "brain drain."
Genuine development in Africa requires neither the MGDs nor development aid.
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