The politics of economics

Abstract

The World Bank's latest report on structural adjustment, not surprisingly, maintains that economic reform is essential for African countries to improve, or even turn around, their economic performance. In an evolutionary change, the Bank also now accepts that other factors are important to economic growth, namely, human capital, protection for the poor during the reform process, and political stability. The problem with the Bank's approach, the author argues, is that evidence of payoffs from adjustment is thin. The major obstacle to economic reform in Africa is governance - which may be either too weak to implement necessary changes, or too authoritarian to risk the politically volatile implications of adjustment. -Author