CHINA’S CONTRIBUTION TO SKILLS DEVELOPMENT IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

By Dr. Sajitha Bashir, World Bank

The scale of China’s engagement in Sub-Saharan Africa is impressive and is expected to grow substantially if future projections of Chinese investments materialize. By 2013, China accounted for a quarter of all SSA trade. Estimates of the stock of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) vary from the official estimate of $ 24 billion to $ 61 billion. (The China Global Investment Tracker estimated the stock of FDI to be $ 61 billion in 2013 and the value of Chinese contracts, a proxy for committed investment flows, to be US$82 billion in the same year - Pigato and Tang, 2015).

HARNESSING TRADE FOR ACCELERATED DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA

THINK MOBILITY

By Prof. L Alan Winters - Professor of Economics, University of Sussex, also of CEPR, IZA and GDN

Mobility would seem to be the very essence of trade: if things don’t move, there is no trade. This is true, and it informs the parts of this article that talk about efforts to reduce the costs of doing international trade, including trade facilitation and aid for trade. But there are three other aspects of mobility that I want to stress: mobility between sectors – notably structural transformation - and mobility between areas – internal migration and urbanization. Third, I shall argue that mobility lies not only at the heart of generating more output and income, but also at the heart of sharing that income in a more equitable and sustainable ways. In a sense the last is about social mobility and I recognize this as one of the most important elements of achieving a sustainable society; however, as an economist I do not have the skills to move beyond the analysis of incomes, so I will concentrate on that.

AFRICA’S NEW MIDDLE CLASS

By Prof. Michael Lofchie, Department of Political Science, UCLA

A VEHICLE FOR PROGRESSIVE CHANGE OR MORE OF THE SAME?

History offers sobering lessons for those concerned with the prospects of broad based development in Africa. Entrenched political oligarchies do not willingly surrender their power and privilege out of a benevolent concern for the wellbeing of the many because they fear that, if they do, they might erode the basis of their dominance. Africa’s incumbent oligarchies share the political anxiety of oligarchs everywhere; if they widen the circle of citizen engagement and distribute wealth more widely, this would empower those who wish to contest their hold on power. Their determination to retain power helps explain the scarcity of development policies that share the benefits of Africa’s growing wealth with poorer Africans.