Rethinking Governance and Development

Abstract

The chapter provides an account of the role of governance in Africa's economic development. It presents the facts that show Africa as a region, since about the late 1990s, has substantially improved in growth and development in the form of per capita income, human development, and poverty. Second, it shows that both economic governance and political governance have improved considerably since the late 1980s or early 1990s, with economic governance measured by economic freedom and political governance by the index of electoral competiveness, executive constraint, and Polity II, as well as by indicators of political stability. Third, it attributes the favorable changes in economic outcomes significantly to these improvements in economic and political governance. Finally, looking to the future, the chapter flags the challenge of the likely disequilibrium between economics and politics under multiparty democracy, with adverse implications for fiscal allocation.