Francis Owusu

Pragmatism and the Gradual Shift from Dependency to Neoliberalism: The World Bank, African Leaders and Development Policy in Africa

Abstract The long-standing disagreement between the international community and African leaders over an appropriate development strategy has been settled by the World Bank’s Comprehensive Development Framework (CDF) and African leaders’ New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). Both documents support neoliberalism and see increased global integration as the key to Africa’s development. This paper traces Africa’s journey from the dependency/neoliberalism debate in the early 1980s to the current endorsement of neoliberalism. It is argued that the overwhelming global attention and support enjoyed by NEPAD derives from its embrace of Western development ideas as well as changes in the global political economy that have made reformist ideas more acceptable. NEPAD’s success will, however, depend on how African leaders and the international community respond to the initiative.

Conceptualizing Livelihood Strategies in African Cities Planning and Development Implications of Multiple Livelihood Strategies

The usefulness of the informal sector and the survival strategies approaches for understanding African urban economies has been undermined by the transformations in urban livelihood strategies brought about by the continents economic crises and neoliberal economic reform policies. Contemporary livelihood strategies in many African cities involve participation in multiple economic activities, usually in both the formal and informal sectors. This paper proposes the “multiple modes of livelihood” (MML) approach as a framework for capturing this emerging livelihood strategy and presents evidence to show the magnitude of the strategy and the kind of activities undertaken. Development and planning implications of this strategy include the following: i) planning theories must reflect the changing livelihood in African cities; ii) the different geographies of such activities within and between urban areas, the proliferation of home-based enterprises in the middle- and professional-class neighborhoods, the emergence of nontraditional household arrangements, and the importance of urban agriculture suggest the need to indigenize urban planning in Africa; and iii) the proliferation of multiple livelihood strategies, especially among public sector employees, has significant implications for national development, especially as it relates to the performance of the public sector.

Differences in the Performance of Public Organisations in Ghana: Implications for Public-Sector Reform Policy

This article uses survey data from Ghana to examine whether there are significant differences in the characteristics of poor and well performing public organisations, and finds that they differ in two respects: remuneration and hiring criteria. It argues that transforming those that perform poorly is, however, more complex than simply addressing these differences: it requires fundamental changes in the cultures of organisations. Recommendations are made for designing comprehensive public-sector reform strategies that focus on both the enabling environment and achieving cultural change in specific organisations, avoiding a one-size-fits-all approach.

Locational Choices of the Ethanol Industry in the Midwest Corn Belt

The Corn Belt has experienced a rapid expansion of corn-based ethanol plants. This has provided researchers the opportunity to examine the relative importance to the renewable fuels industry of several location factors previously identified as important to agro-industries. Using probit regressions, this study identifies the factors significant to ethanol firms’ location decisions in the four-state study area of Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, and Nebraska. In Iowa and Illinois, where corn is largely ubiquitous, firms move beyond corn supply to consider other localized factors in their decision-making process. Factors such as rail access, population density, and proximity to blending terminals emerge as significant considerations. Probit regressions comparing states reveal the competitive advantages that each offers to ethanol firms. The importance of the findings to economic development professionals is discussed and areas for future research are suggested.

The Socio‐Economic Determinants of HIV/AIDS Infection Rates in Lesotho, Malawi, Swaziland and Zimbabwe

Using data from the Demographic and Health Survey, this article analyses the relationship between HIV status and the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of adults in Lesotho, Malawi, Swaziland and Zimbabwe. It constructs the risk profile of the average adult, computes the values of age, education and wealth where the estimated probability of infection assumes its highest value, and determines the percentage of adults for whom these three factors are positively correlated with that probability. It finds that in all four countries: (i) the probability of being HIV-positive is higher for women than for men; (ii) the likelihood of infection is higher for urban than for rural residents; and (iii) there is an inverted-U relationship between age and HIV status. Also that, unlike gender, rural/urban residence and age, the relationship between the probability of infection and wealth, education and marital status varies by country. The results provide support for country-specific and more targeted HIV policies and programmes.

Organizational Culture and Public Sector Reforms in a Post-Washington Consensus Era: Can Ghana's Reformers Learn from Ghana's 'Good Performers'?

Reforming Africa’s public sector has been on the agenda of African governments and their development partners for decades and yet the problem persists. This failure can be attributed to two related factors: solutions to the ‘African public sector problem’ have been dictated by external interests, and the policies have ignored the experiences of organizations within those countries. This article contributes to the search for effective reform policies by making the case for inclusion of the experiences of organizations within each country. Using the concept of organizational culture as a framework, I propose an approach based on the following claims: In every country there are some public organizations that perform relatively well, given their constraints; there is the need to understand why and how there are poor and good performing organizations within the same country; and information from such analysis should form the basis of public sector reform policies. The applicability of the approach is demonstrated with a study of Ghana.

Implementing a Revenue Authority Model of Tax Administration in Ghana: An Organizational Learning Perspective

The desire to increase domestic revenue mobilization has made tax reform a priority for governments in many developing countries. Addressing the tax problem, however, is often a complex process that involves reforming the tax system, as well as setting up effective administrative structures to administer that system. Many see the revenue authority (RA) model as the solution to these problems. Developing an RA model in Ghana began in the mid 1980s; it was not, however, fully operational and integrated until 2010. Using social learning theory, we argue that Ghana’s successful readoption of the RA model can be attributed to the lessons learned both in its own first attempts and from the successful tax reform experiences of other countries.

The Public Sector and Development in Africa: The Case for a Developmental Public Service

Following decades of downplaying the role of the state in development in Africa, there is now a rediscovery of the importance of the state in the developmental process, as the need for a more capable public sector has been rediscovered. Indeed, there is a renewed sense of urgency for creating an effective public sector in African countries at both the continental and national levels (Economic Commission of Africa, 2004). African governments have attempted public sector reforms since independence, and since the 1980s many African countries have with the support of donor agencies aggressively experimented with various reform strategies (see Table 4.1). These efforts ranged from the ‘quantitative’ first-generation and ‘qualitative’ second-generation reforms of the Washington Consensus era in the 1980s and 1990s, to the current ‘service delivery’ third-generation reforms of the post-Washington Consensus (World Bank, 2003). At the same time, there were parallel and overlapping sets of public sector reform policies; under the banner of the New Public Management (NPM), which draws on a model used in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, and attempts to apply market principles to governmental administration.

Moving Africa beyond the Resource Curse: Defining the “Good-Fit” Approach Imperative in Natural Resource Management and Identifying the Capacity Needs

“Resource curse”—a paradoxical situation in which countries with an abundance of nonrenewable resources experience stagnant growth or even economic contraction—has become an important cautionary concept in discussing potential scenarios for the recent natural resource-led development efforts in Africa (Barma et al. 2012). The historical and contemporary records of many natural resource-dependent African countries justify the concerns that have been evoked in the resource curse discussions (Besada 2013). However, the need for caution inherent in policies aimed at avoiding resource curse has often led to timid (conservative) policies with some important unintended consequences. For instance, well-intentioned stakeholders in the natural resource value chain (e.g., extractive industry developers; development partners such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF); nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) such as Revenue Watch and Oxfam International; and civil society organizations) have pushed African countries to implement “best practice” policies such as saving abroad in the form of sovereign wealth funds, oil stabilization funds, etc., as strategies to avoid the resource curse. However, given that the rate of private return on investment in Africa is higher than in any other region (Collier and Warnholz 2009), saving abroad could have a stifling effect on the development aspirations of African countries than what the resource curse itself could entail.

Managing Africa’s Natural Resources

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