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Good Growth and Governance for Africa

Rethinking Development Strategies - Working Paper #242

Akbar Noman, Joseph Stiglitz

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This is the draft introductory chapter of IPD's Africa Task Force Volume "Good Growth and Governance for Africa: Rethinking Development Strategies" which addresses the question of policy options for generating and sustaining high growth in Africa. This involves not merely documenting and interpreting policy lessons but also considering issues which affect how to translate and adapt them to particular country contexts. There is, of course, substantial diversity within Africa in terms of country characteristics, past performance and future prospects. Rather less obvious is the diversity of circumstances and strategies in the success stories of Asia, where the mix of policies varied considerably across countries and over time. This volume not only revisits common African policy prescriptions, looking at the context of their creation and evolution, but it also revisits the policies of many East Asian countries, looking at the particular circumstances which led to their success and failure.

About the Authors

Akbar Noman
Senior Policy Fellow
Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD)

Akbar Noman is Senior Fellow at the Initiative for Policy Dialogue and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. His other academic appointments include Oxford University, and the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex. Dr. Noman has spent over 25 years at the World Bank, where he held a variety of assignments. His regional foci included Africa, Asia and the transition economies in Europe and Central Asia. He has served as Economic Adviser to Pakistan’s Ministry of Finance and on the Prime Minister’s Committee on Economic Policy. He has also worked for the ILO’s Asian Regional Team for Employment Promotion based in Bangkok and as a Visiting Fellow at Oxford University.

Joseph Stiglitz
President
Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD)

Joseph E. Stiglitz is President of the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, and Chairman of the Committee on Global Thought at Columbia University. He is University Professor at Columbia, teaching in its Economics Department, its Business School, and its School of International and Public Affairs. He chaired the UN Commission of Experts on Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial System, created in the aftermath of the financial crisis by the President of the General Assembly. He is former Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President of the World Bank and Chairman of President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisors. He was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 2001.