Developing Africa — the Global Basket Base

Abstract

According to a recent World Bank report by C. W. Jones and M. A. Miguel, Adjustment in Africa (2002), incomes in some African nations have declined by as much as 20% since 1977, notwithstanding some major economic policy changes. Average incomes in many African countries, such as Mozambique, are among the lowest in the world, with only $60 per capita per year in 1993. Africa cannot match the progress achieved by even the poorest developing countries in Asia even though African countries on average receive more aid per capita since independence than their Asian counterparts. They usually spend too little on education, health, investment, and better government and overspend on government wages, the military, and most importantly on corruption and subsidies to inefficient public enterprises. Even where money is spent on education and health care, these expenditures are usually concentrated on large, prestigious hospitals and universities and not on preventative medicine and elementary education.