Why has post-independence African economic development been so poor? This is not a small question. Small mountains of academic papers, books, surveys, World Bank analyses, country reports and development agency pontificating have been devoted to this topic.
The problem is that the world has gone from $11-trillion to around $100-trillion over the same period. Africa’s sixfold rise compares with the tenfold rise of the world as a whole, meaning that Africa is less economically meaningful today than it was in 1980. I have to say I’m very affected by two books that try to answer this thorny question. The first is Why Nations Fail, by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. The second is False Economy, by Alan Beattie. Both books are getting a bit long in the tooth now; they are each over 10 years old. But I think it is significant that over this period, no book has seriously challenged the views espoused.
The same, sadly, is true of extractive institutions, which arise when leaders resist development and focus instead on consolidating power. The result is repetitive cycles of poverty. It’s a fabulously complex but very convincing idea. You can see evidence of it all over post-independence Africa, in both directions. The extractive nature of pre-independence Africa was simply subsumed by new African elites, who concerned themselves, first and foremost, with power consolidation.
This week, Mantashe – who is the minister of both mineral resources and energy – had the choice of attending the oil conference in Cape Town and/or the Joburg Mining Indaba.
The article is problematic and ……