Africa's Development Debate

I only wish Richard (comments 359 and 360) reads what I have to say about Africa’s prospects for development in the long-run in my last book on “World on the Move” when it will come in English later this year! I do agree that a decent development economist – and, for the same reason, any intellectualist dealing with Africa and her people – must exercise a holistic, or interdisciplinary approach. It is necessary to take into account the cultural dimension of economic growth and social development, which in Africa is as important as elsewhere. One good reason which has driven so much of my attention to the exciting case of Africa – both, in the elaborations in “World on the Move” and in my active traveling – has been the observation than in no other part of the world the culture and the nature are so closed to each other. And that factor must be taken into account by each and everyone researcher devoted to the quest for African development path.

There is not only a potential of such, what it convincingly stressed by Richard, but also true achievements. The average rate of GDP growth, accompanied by improvement of measures like the Human Development Index, in 2006-08 was exceeding 6 percent. It was even higher in sub-Saharan Africa, where – at 6.5 percent – it overcome the rate of growth in East Central Europe or in ASEAN. And such remarkable growth was not just an outcome of favorable commodity prices exported from Africa, but also a result of improving institutions, better quality of human capital and significance progress with governance. Yet while we are still far, far away from Afrique Paradis (see “World on the Mover”, or “Wędrujący świat”, Polish edition, p. 44), we are much closer to find an answer how African countries can be put on the path of fast growth and sustainable development. For this to happen the best way is to relay on coincidence theory of development and new pragmatism (ibidem, pp. 315-332).

Professor Grzegorz Kolodko