Aid & Reform in Africa
Lessons from Ten Case Studies
An introduction to Aid & Reform in Africa by James Wolfensohn points out that for aid programmes to succeed they must have a country-owned development strategy. This point is reiterated throughout the ten case studies presented in this book, compiled and edited by Shanta Devarajan, Chief Economist of the Human Development Network at the World Bank.
Aid & Reform in Africa provides a thorough review of the interrelationships involved in determining the effectiveness of aid in Africa. It examines the degree of political and economic reform and their relationship to the success of aid programmes in the Ivory Coast, Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. Every case study presented in Aid & Reform in Africa is written by nationals of their respective countries, who offer first-hand evaluations of the development conditions existing within each country.
Given the relatively even distribution of aid amongst all the countries reviewed, there remains a wide disparity in the success of their respective aid and development programmes. The conclusions derived from these studies offer excellent guidance for the future direction of aid to the African continent.
Led by Shanta Devarajan and Ritva Reinikka, the World Development Report 2004 - Making Services Work for Poor People addresses the issues of alleviating poverty in developing regions. This annual flagship publication by the World Bank provides extensive in-depth analysis of government services for health, education, and public utilities. It promotes a framework for putting the beneficiaries at the center of these services, a framework supported by comparative statistics evaluating the effectiveness of existing programmes. The report also highlights numerous relevant case studies.
The authors of the report warn that achieving these reforms will be difficult. " There is no silver bullet," says Devarajan, " just the hard slog of reforming institutions and power relations. But the needs of the world's poor people are urgent. And services have too often failed them. We must act now."
A review of the World Development Report 2004 is also posted on this site.
