Africa Task Force Meeting, Addis Ababa 2008

The Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD) at Columbia University established in 2006 a Task Force on Africa in response to the concern with Sub-Saharan Africa's economic performance and the recognition that the set of problems facing the continent are sufficiently serious, distinctive and interrelated, and that a task force focusing on Africa could be extremely instructive.

A related set of considerations that inform the task force are (a) the many disappointing results of nearly a quarter century of adjustment and conditionality; (b) the view that the policy debate on Africa had often been confined within too narrow a set of parameters; and (c) that in particular policy analysis and prescriptions had not been adequately informed by the lessons of success in countries that were "catching-up", above all in Asia. Convening again in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on July 10-11, 2008, we will expand and deepen previous conversations and present the remainder of the inputs to what will ultimately become a policy-oriented edited volume. A set of papers to be presented at the meeting will benefit from and build upon the discussions in earlier meetings, either as revised and expanded versions of papers present previously or as new papers commissioned in the light of the earlier discussions.

One set of papers will pertain to the broad, cross-cutting themes of development strategy: the policy options for accelerated, sustained, equitable growth and structural transformation in the light of lessons of success, especially in East Asia. Another set of papers will broaden or supplement this important conversation to cover selected sectoral and other issues of particular salience to Africa, drawing from the topical challenges in African development.