Much of CGD’s work is highly relevant for Africa and the relationship between the continent and the rest of the world. For the region specifically, our focus is The Emerging Africa Project, a series of research and analytical outputs and discussions on the future of business and finance in Sub-Saharan Africa. The project is directed by senior fellow Todd Moss and draws heavily on the work of senior fellow Vijaya Ramachandran, visiting fellow John Simon, and other research staff. Much of CGD’s work is highly relevant for Africa and the relationship between the continent and the rest of the world. For the region specifically, our focus is The Emerging Africa Project, a series of research and analytical outputs and discussions on the future of business and finance in Sub-Saharan Africa. The project is directed by senior fellow Todd Moss and draws heavily on the work of senior fellow Vijaya Ramachandran, visiting fellow John Simon, and other research staff.
The Emerging Africa Project
African countries can only transition to middle-income status and be a true player in the international economy through growth of the private sector. First and foremost, this requires unleashing Africa’s wealth of entrepreneurial energy and talent. African countries also need links to international networks and support of donors to improve the environment for investment, tap into new sources of private capital, and build the next generation of business leaders. The Emerging Africa Project is a portfolio of research, dialogues, and development policy innovations to:
Relieve the constraints on African entrepreneurs by…
- Turning new data on the current investment climate into policy change
- Enhancing donor efforts to support improvements to the business environment, including initiatives such as the Investment Climate Facility and proposals for a “Business Climate MCC”
- Developing proposals to design, finance, and maintain infrastructure assets, with a special focus on clean energy
Generate new private capital flows through…
- Analyzing the effectiveness of public sector efforts to catalyze new funds, such as OPIC and the IFC
- Finding creative ways to leverage the capital of endowments and pension funds
- Exploring the potential of private equity and other non-traditional investment vehicles in the poorest countries, including investors from India, the Middle East, and China
Respond to the global financial crisis by…
- Monitoring trends in emerging and frontier capital markets
- Analyzing policy responses to global economic conditions
- Proposing risk-buffering mechanisms, such as derivatives-based commodity price insurance
Emerging Africa Publications Highlights:
- Africa’s Private Sector: What’s Wrong with the Business Environment and What to Do About It
- Why Doesn't Africa Get More Equity Investment? Frontier Stock Markets, Firm Size and Asset Allocations of Global Emerging Market Funds - Working Paper 112
- Power and Roads for Africa (Essay from The White House and the World: A Global Development Agenda for the next U.S. President)
- The Investment Climate Facility for Africa: Does it Deserve U.S. Support?
For More information, Contact: Lauren Young.
Other areas of CGD’s work with particular relevance to Africa include Migration, Aid Effectiveness, Debt, and Global Health.
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I'm joined on the Wonkcast this week by Julius Kiiza, a visiting fellow here at the Center for Global Development. Julius is an associate professor at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda and is spending time at CGD on a grant from the Canadian International Development Research Center. His research addresses the prospects for aid effectiveness and development in northern Uganda.
Julius tells me that northern Uganda has presented a difficult paradox for aid donors. For years, the country as a whole has been touted as a success story, and a potential model for other developing countries. It boasts one of the fastest rates of economic growth in all of Africa and has cut poverty nearly in half since 1992. However, Julius explains, the north of the country has made very little progress during that time. While the national poverty rate is around 30%, the poverty rate in the north is still around 60%.
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Why do so many businesses choose to remain informal? Vijaya Ramachandran and co-authors discover that the answer is more nuanced than often believed. In East Africa, for instance, the difference in productivity between formal and informal firms is often indistinguishable, while in Southern Africa productivity it is more differentiated. Policies to encourage formalization and increase productivity are likely to be more successful in East Africa, whereas an emphasis on job training and vocational skills might be more appropriate in Southern Africa..
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Senior fellow Todd Moss investigates how the aftershocks of the global economic downturn are affecting Africa. African countries that take the right steps to mitigate the pain will be poised to benefit from the eventual recovery; those that don't will be left behind.
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Senior fellow Todd Moss considers the future of foreign aid in light of Dambiso Moyo’s book, Dead Aid, which argues that Western aid to Africa has brought more harm than help. The relevant question today, he argues, is not whether aid is good or bad, but rather how aid can be made to work better for both donors and the people of Africa.
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Senior fellow David Wheeler and Kevin Ummel argue for rapid, very large-scale deployment of existing solar thermal technology. Using maps of solar radiation and project finance calculations, they show that with modest subsidies solar power generated in North Africa and the Middle East could meet the needs of 35 million Europeans by 2020. At that point, solar power would be cheaper than fossil fuels and future projects would no longer require subsidies.
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Why should the United States care about economic growth in Africa? Because it is the right thing to do and the smart thing to do. Helping to spur economic growth in Africa promotes our values, enhances our security, and helps create economic and political opportunities for the people of the continent. Public interest in Africa is higher than ever—witness consumer movements such as Product Red—and bipartisan political
support recently renewed funding for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Several new opportunities now exist for U.S. firms to compete and benefit from a win-win partnership with the region.
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CGD senior fellow Vijaya Ramachandran argues in this essay that the next U.S. president can play a valuable role in helping Africa to overcome two crucial barriers to poverty reduction: lack of power and lack of roads. Ramachandran urges the next president to create a $1 billion Clean Energy Fund for Africa to facilitate the transfer of U.S. infrastructure technology, including renewable energy; and to encourage the World Bank and the African Development Bank to focus on cross-country regional infrastructure projects, also with a strong emphasis on clean technology. The essay is included in a forthcoming CGD volume: The White House and the World: A Global Development Agenda for the Next U.S. President.
Learn More
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With President Bush's trip to Africa making headlines this week, CGD senior fellow Steve Radelet and research assistant Sami Bazzi offer a close look at the latest U.S. foreign assistance numbers. Bottom line: although America's aid has more than doubled since 2000, the new money went mostly to Iraq, Afghanistan and a small number of debt relief operations; and almost all was allocated through bilateral rather than multilateral channels. Assistance to Africa more than quadrupled from $1.5 billion in 1996 to $6.6 billion in 2006 and has been enormously important in funding humanitarian relief and HIV/AIDS programs. But even with the increases, U.S. assistance to Africa still averages less than $9 per African per year. And U.S. assistance for Africa has become less selective: since 2000 the shares going to the poorest countries and to the best-governed countries have fallen.
Learn More
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Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who will host President Bush on Thursday in the final stop of his five-country Africa tour, has news that may surprise some people: despite the problems in some African countries, things are clearly improving in much of the continent. In a new CGD essay co-authored with senior fellow Steve Radelet, Sirleaf describes how a growing number of African countries are embracing democracy and good governance, strengthening macroeconomic policies, and benefiting from debt relief. These countries are in the midst of an economic and development rebound, with economic growth averaging 5 percent for a decade, poverty rates beginning to fall, and social indicators beginning to improve. The essay concludes with recommendations on how this progress can be sustained and consolidated.
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Over the past two decades tens of thousands of children were forcibly recruited or abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda. What happens to these former child soldiers when they return to civilian life? This new working paper by CGD post-doctoral fellow Chris Blattman shows that the popular perception of former child soldiers as social misfits and possible threats to society is generally contrary to the facts. His research shows that the experience of forced recruitment generally leads to greater political participation, more than doubling the likelihood that a young person will become a community leader.
Learn More
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While the threat of global warming is increasingly accepted, little attention has been paid to the likely impact at the country level, especially in the developing world. In this new book, Bill Cline, a joint senior fellow at CGD and the Peterson Institute for International Economics, provides the first ever estimates of the impact on agriculture by country, with a particular focus on the social and economic implications in China, India, Brazil, and the poor countries of the tropical belt in Africa and Latin America. His study shows that the long-term negative effects on world agriculture will be severe, and that developing countries will suffer first and worst.
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Donor funding for HIV/AIDS has skyrocketed in the last decade: from US$ 300 million in 1996 to US$ 8.9 billion in 2006. Yet, surprisingly little is known about how this money is spent. Following the Funding for HIV/AIDS, by CGD's HIV/AIDS Monitor team, analyzes the policies and practices of the world's largest AIDS donors—the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and the World Bank's Multi-Country HIV/AIDS Program for Africa (MAP)—as they are applied in three case study countries: Mozambique, Uganda and Zambia. The report urges all three funders to improve country-level coordination, tracking of funds, and the collection and disclosure of data. It also identifies the strengths and shortcomings of each of the funders and offers suggestions for improvement.
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Microfinance is a widely celebrated strategy for helping poor people in the developing world. Leading microfinance institutions, including the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Grameen Bank, reach millions of clients. CGD research fellow David Roodman and Uzma Qureshi analyze why some microfinance institutions succeed in covering costs, earning returns, attracting capital, and scaling up. They conclude that financial imperatives can explain much about how microfinance products are designed, for example, the common emphasis on group lending to women. Thus the business acumen of microfinance innovators is underappreciated. But more rigorous study is needed to understand when and where these design choices help clients.
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Does foreign aid help develop public institutions and state capacity in developing countries? In this Working Paper, the authors suggest that despite recent calls for increased aid to poor countries by the international community, there may be an "aid-institutions paradox." While donor intentions may be sincere, the authors conclude that it is possible that aid could undermine long-term institutional development, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.
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The Burnside and Dollar (2000) finding that aid raises growth in a good policy environment has had an important influence on policy and academic debates. We conduct a data gathering exercise that updates their data from 1970-93 to 1970-97, as well as filling in missing data for the original period 1970-93. We find that the BD finding is not robust to the use of this additional data. (JEL F350, O230, O400)
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Large numbers of African nurses and doctors are emigrating to the U.S., U.K., Australia and other rich countries. These movements strain local health systems and deprive sick people of urgently needed care. Right? Think again. What if wages and working conditions in city slums and rural villages are so dismal that trained health workers are unwilling to work there, regardless of migration options? What if the possibility of migration actually causes more people in developing countries to train as health care workers? Drawing on a new database of health worker emigration from Africa, CGD research fellow Michael Clemens finds that the conventional wisdom about the impact of doctors and nurses migration is entirely wrong. Visas, he concludes, do not kill. Learn more
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Controversies about aid effectiveness go back decades. This new working paper by CGD senior fellow Steven Radelet provides an introduction and overview of the basic concepts, data and key debates about foreign aid. It explores the range of views on the relationship between foreign aid and economic growth and discusses the reform of foreign aid, including selectivity, country ownership, the participatory approach, harmonization and coordination, and results-based management.Learn more
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Development refers to improvements in the conditions of people’s lives, such as health, education, and income. It occurs at different rates in different countries. The U.S. underwent its own version of development since the time it became an independent nation in 1776.
Learn more about Rich World, Poor World: A Guide to Global Development
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A Report of the Commission for Weak States and US National Security
Terrorists training at bases in Afghanistan and Somalia. Transnational crime networks putting down roots in Myanmar/Burma and Central Asia. Poverty, disease, and humanitarian emergencies overwhelming governments in Haiti and Central Africa. A common thread runs through these disparate crises that form the fundamental foreign policy and security challenges of our time. These crises originate in, spread to, and disproportionately affect developing countries where governments lack the capacity, and sometimes the will, to respond.
These weak and failed states matter to American security, American values, and the prospects for global economic growth upon which the American economy depends.
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Senior fellow David Wheeler and Kevin Ummel argue for rapid, very large-scale deployment of existing solar thermal technology. Using maps of solar radiation and project finance calculations, they show that with modest subsidies solar power generated in North Africa and the Middle East could meet the needs of 35 million Europeans by 2020. At that point, solar power would be cheaper than fossil fuels and future projects would no longer require subsidies.
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Chris Blattman, Non-Resident Fellow Chris Blattman is an assistant professor of political science and Economics at Yale University. In addition to being a non-resident fellow at the Center for Global Development, Chris is a Research Affiliate with Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), a board member of the Journal of Globalization and Development (JGD), and a member of the International Growth Center (IGC). He also acts as a consultant and adviser to the World Bank, UNICEF, the UN Peacebuilding Fund, Uganda’s Office of the Prime Minister, and Liberia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs.
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Carol J. Lancaster, Non-Resident Fellow Carol Lancaster is Director of the Mortara Center for International Studies at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. Before joining the Georgetown faculty in 1996, Professor Lancaster served three years as Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
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Todd Moss, Vice President for Corporate Affairs, and Senior Fellow Todd Moss works on U.S.-Africa relations and financial issues facing sub-Saharan Africa, including policies that affect private capital flows, natural resource management, debt, and aid.
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Vijaya Ramachandran, Senior Fellow Vijaya Ramachandran's areas of expertise are private-sector development, entrepreneurship, and foreign direct investment. She also manages CGD's work on fragile states, which focuses on the delivery of post-conflict assistance.
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Peter Timmer, Non-Resident Fellow Peter Timmer is a leading authority on agriculture and rural development. He has served as a professor at Stanford and Cornell, on three faculties at Harvard, and at the University of California–San Diego, where he was also the dean of the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies. A core advisor on the World Bank’s World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development, Timmer is working with several Asian governments on domestic policy responses to the crisis in the global rice market. He is also an advisor to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on agricultural development issues.
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Nicolas van de Walle, Non-Resident Fellow Nicolas van de Walle (Ph.D. Princeton University, 1990) is the John S. Knight Professor of International Studies and the Director of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies at Cornell University and is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Global Development.
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To Formalize or Not to Formalize? Comparisons of Microenterprise Data from Southern and East Africa - Working Paper 175
- Jul 20, 2009
Why do so many businesses choose to remain informal? Vijaya Ramachandran and co-authors discover that the answer is more nuanced than often believed. In East Africa, for instance, the difference in productivity between formal and informal firms is often indistinguishable, while in Southern Africa productivity it is more differentiated. Policies to encourage formalization and increase productivity are likely to be more successful in East Africa, whereas an emphasis on job training and vocational skills might be more appropriate in Southern Africa..
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How the Economic Crisis Is Hurting Africa--And What to Do About It
- May 8, 2009
Senior fellow Todd Moss investigates how the aftershocks of the global economic downturn are affecting Africa. African countries that take the right steps to mitigate the pain will be poised to benefit from the eventual recovery; those that don't will be left behind.
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Dambisa Moyo's (Serious) Challenge to the Development Business
- Apr 21, 2009
Senior fellow Todd Moss considers the future of foreign aid in light of Dambiso Moyo’s book, Dead Aid, which argues that Western aid to Africa has brought more harm than help. The relevant question today, he argues, is not whether aid is good or bad, but rather how aid can be made to work better for both donors and the people of Africa.
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Power and Roads for Africa: What the United States Can Do (White House and the World Policy Brief)
- Aug 22, 2008
Why should the United States care about economic growth in Africa? Because it is the right thing to do and the smart thing to do. Helping to spur economic growth in Africa promotes our values, enhances our security, and helps create economic and political opportunities for the people of the continent. Public interest in Africa is higher than ever—witness consumer movements such as Product Red—and bipartisan political
support recently renewed funding for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Several new opportunities now exist for U.S. firms to compete and benefit from a win-win partnership with the region.
-
Power and Roads for Africa
- Mar 31, 2008
CGD senior fellow Vijaya Ramachandran argues in this essay that the next U.S. president can play a valuable role in helping Africa to overcome two crucial barriers to poverty reduction: lack of power and lack of roads. Ramachandran urges the next president to create a $1 billion Clean Energy Fund for Africa to facilitate the transfer of U.S. infrastructure technology, including renewable energy; and to encourage the World Bank and the African Development Bank to focus on cross-country regional infrastructure projects, also with a strong emphasis on clean technology. The essay is included in a forthcoming CGD volume: The White House and the World: A Global Development Agenda for the Next U.S. President.
Learn More
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U.S. Assistance to Africa and the World: What Do the Numbers Say?
- Feb 19, 2008
With President Bush's trip to Africa making headlines this week, CGD senior fellow Steve Radelet and research assistant Sami Bazzi offer a close look at the latest U.S. foreign assistance numbers. Bottom line: although America's aid has more than doubled since 2000, the new money went mostly to Iraq, Afghanistan and a small number of debt relief operations; and almost all was allocated through bilateral rather than multilateral channels. Assistance to Africa more than quadrupled from $1.5 billion in 1996 to $6.6 billion in 2006 and has been enormously important in funding humanitarian relief and HIV/AIDS programs. But even with the increases, U.S. assistance to Africa still averages less than $9 per African per year. And U.S. assistance for Africa has become less selective: since 2000 the shares going to the poorest countries and to the best-governed countries have fallen.
Learn More
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The Good News Out of Africa: Democracy, Stability, and the Renewal of Growth and Development
- Feb 19, 2008
Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who will host President Bush on Thursday in the final stop of his five-country Africa tour, has news that may surprise some people: despite the problems in some African countries, things are clearly improving in much of the continent. In a new CGD essay co-authored with senior fellow Steve Radelet, Sirleaf describes how a growing number of African countries are embracing democracy and good governance, strengthening macroeconomic policies, and benefiting from debt relief. These countries are in the midst of an economic and development rebound, with economic growth averaging 5 percent for a decade, poverty rates beginning to fall, and social indicators beginning to improve. The essay concludes with recommendations on how this progress can be sustained and consolidated.
Learn More
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From Violence to Voting: War and Political Participation in Uganda - Working Paper 138
- Jan 23, 2008
Over the past two decades tens of thousands of children were forcibly recruited or abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda. What happens to these former child soldiers when they return to civilian life? This new working paper by CGD post-doctoral fellow Chris Blattman shows that the popular perception of former child soldiers as social misfits and possible threats to society is generally contrary to the facts. His research shows that the experience of forced recruitment generally leads to greater political participation, more than doubling the likelihood that a young person will become a community leader.
Learn More
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As Zimbabwe careens out of control, Robert Mugabe and the international community are both pointing fingers — mostly at each other. Todd Moss and Michael Clemens of the Center for Global Development argue that Zimbabwe’s current economic malaise has been made much worse by the country’s political tensions and the mismanagement by those in power.
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From Foreign Policy magazine, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington DC, March/April 2005.
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From the International Herald Tribune
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From the World Policy Journal
By Todd Moss and Alicia Bannon
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From the Financial Times
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From the Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, NY)
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From the Washington Monthly
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From the Financial Times Comment and Analysis
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From the International Herald Tribune
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