NBER Africa Project, Sebastian Edwards, Simon
Johnson, and David N. Weil, Co-Chairs
The
NBER Africa Project was launched in Fall 2007 to study
economic success stories in Africa. The
primary goal of the project is to support high quality research that identifies
and analyzes African economic development successes, ultimately to inform
policy making at both the national and international levels. Of particular
interest are the positive economic experiences in a number of African countries
over the last decade. What are the roots of these developments? To what extent
are they sustainable and transferable to other African countries?
Another
goal of the project is to strengthen the cadre of researchers working on
African development, and build linkages between developed country researchers
and their counterparts in Africa. We
particularly want non-African specialists to learn more about the continent, in
the hope of making serious study of Africa a
more mainstream endeavor for applied economics.
The
third and final goal of the project is to systematize available data on Africa. The NBER will establish a website as an inventory
and clearinghouse of economic data on Africa,
and will host datasets in cases where existing public data is not otherwise
available online.
The
group will meet once yearly in either Cambridge
or Africa, culminating in a policy-oriented conference in Africa
in summer 2011, drawing on our best work.
This
4.5-year project has been supported by a generous grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation.
Origins of the Project
Conventional
wisdom has long been negative on Africa.
Sub-Saharan Africa is commonly regarded as destined to remain poor, suffer from
recurrent crises, and endure ill health either because of its geography
(including its unique disease burden), or its ethnolinguistic
fractionalization (leading to repeated conflicts), or its long-standing
corruption. The precise mechanisms vary, but a standard argument has been that Africa is doomed to stagnate due to deep-rooted problems
that are hard to fix.
There
is no doubt that the inhabitants of Africa have done badly, on average and for
the most part, not just over the past 20-40 years, but at least since the
beginning of industrialization. It is also indisputable that much of Africa is
currently doing quite well – for the region south of the Sahara, growth in total GDP will likely exceed 5 percent
in 2007 for the fourth straight year, and per capita growth is recently in the
range of 3.5-3.9 percent. At the same time, Africa is also making progress in terms of improving key
public goods, particularly demonstrating the effectiveness of providing
antiretroviral drugs.
Could
this be the beginning of either extended growth or a sustained improvement in
health, or both, in some parts of Africa? Is
there a broad process underway, including manufacturing, agriculture, and
services (e.g., tourism) or just progress in a few isolated sectors (e.g.,
commodities)? Is better performance solely the outcome of high prices for raw
materials, coupled with – in some instances – recovery from civil
conflict? Where exactly are lives improving? What has placed countries on a
path to stronger public finances and reduced inflation? Do bottlenecks in
transportation, or public service issues like poor water quality, create
obstacles that will quickly become constraints? What can we learn by comparing
countries where growth and better health have persisted with countries where
gains have proved short-lived?
