Publication: Sub-Saharan Africa : Into the Next Millennium
Loading...
Published
1996-02
ISSN
Date
2012-08-13
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
A continent in transition takes sustainable poverty reduction as the ultimate and overarching objective of all development strategies. In the last 5 years, several studies have examined the global and African experience with a view to developing a broad framework for pursuing this objective. These include the World Bank's long-term perspective study on Africa, several human development reports and world development reports. The present study looks at Africa's development agenda in the mid-1990s and asks questions such as: 1) what has happened to the landscape of Africa's political economy over the last 5 years? 2) What have we learned about the development process? 3) How is the development agenda unfolding as we look to the next decade? And 4) what are the respective roles of the partners in African development? The answers to these questions constitute the findings and recommendations of the study. However, as important as these findings and recommendations is the fact that these evolved out of extensive consultations with African countries and donors. This process of consultation, especially with African stakeholders, contributed to a valuable dialogue, paving the way for understanding and consensus on a number of issues. Both African countries and donors need to make efforts to learn from the past, from each other and others, such as from the East Asian experience. Ultimately, however, Africa's development strategy will have to be fashioned in Africa. Realizing this strategy in any meaningful, broad-based and sustainable manner will be possible only through a dynamic partnership between the African people, governments and donors.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank. 1996. Sub-Saharan Africa : Into the Next Millennium. Africa Region Findings & Good Practice Infobriefs; No. 57. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/9977 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Rural Transport : Improving its Contribution to Growth and Poverty Reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-11)Poverty reduction is a long-standing development objective of many developing countries and their aid donors, including the World Bank. To achieve this goal, these countries and organizations have sought to improve smallholder agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) as part of a broader rural development agenda aimed at providing a minimal basket of goods and services in rural areas to satisfy basic human needs. These goods and services include not only food, health care, and education, but also infrastructure. As a result, rural transport remains a constraint to increasing agricultural productivity, achieving rural growth, and thus alleviating rural poverty. The first major finding of the review of rural transport theory and practice is that many of the approaches needed to improve the impact of rural transport interventions on poverty reduction are known, particularly from the work of the Rural Travel and Transport Program (RTTP) of Sub-Saharan Africa Transport Policy Program (SSATP). Unfortunately, many of the recommended approaches remain untested within Sub-Saharan Africa beyond the pilot scale, notwithstanding their influence on rural transport policy and project design in other operational regions of the Bank. For SSA, these are missed opportunities. Even where SSA countries have applied these approaches, institutional and financial sustainability and scaling up local successes remain significant challenges for both their agriculture and transport sectors. The second key finding is that rural households are rarely the point of focus in the design of rural transport interventions in SSA, even though a methodology to allow this focus has been developed and successfully tested in several pilot projects since the 1980s, the result is that the transport needs of rural households continue to be analyzed and understood by means of an indirect assessment of those needs, which means that most projects have a less than desirable impact on improving the rural access and mobility situation of such households.Publication OED Review of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Process : Albania Case Study(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2004-07-06)This report analyzes the experience of Albania with the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) process. The focus of the report is on evaluating the performance of the World Bank in supporting the PRSP initiative, not on appraising the authorities policies. The main emphasis of the report is on the formulation and implementation of the PRSP until March 2003, but it does cover elements of the PRSP Progress Report which was completed following the evaluation team s mission to Albania. The report is structured as follows: Section B describes the country context including, political and economic background, the poverty profile, and key constraints for development. Section C addresses the PRS Process in its entirety and includes an assessment of the relevance of the PRSP for Albania and its consistency with the underlying principles of the initiative. Section D assesses the World Bank s support to the process. Finally, section E summarizes the main points of the assessment and attempts to draw lessons of more general applicability.Publication Achieving the Millennium Development Goals in Sub-Saharan Africa : A Macroeconomic Monitoring Framework(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-10)The authors present an integrated macroeconomic approach to monitoring progress toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Sub-Saharan Africa. At the heart of their approach is a macroeconomic model that captures key linkages between foreign aid, public investment (disaggregated into education, infrastructure, and health), the supply side, and poverty. The model is linked through cross-section regressions to indicators of malnutrition, infant mortality, life expectancy, and access to safe water. A composite MDG indicator is also calculated. The functioning of the framework is illustrated by simulating the impact of an increase in aid and a debt write-off for Niger at the MDG horizon of 2015, under alternative assumptions about the degree of efficiency of public investment. The authors' approach can serve as the building block of Strategy Papers for Human Development (SPAHD), a more encompassing concept than the current "Poverty Reduction" Strategy Papers.Publication Ethiopia : Focusing Public Expenditures on Poverty Reduction, Volume 1. Main Report(Washington, DC, 2001-12-20)The topics for this review were determined by the Government in consultation with a core group of donors at a workshop in Brussels organized by the European Commission in November 2000. The Government suggested reviewing public expenditures at the regional level, starting with three regions. This public expenditure review (PER) marks the first explicit attempt at Regional PERs. This integrated report draws on draft reports from the January-April 2000 mission as well as from a workshop held in Addis Ababa during September 17-18, 2001. The theme amd the focus topics for this PER emerged out of consultations between the Ethiopian governmentand a core donor group at a workshop in Brussels organized by the European Commission in November 2000. This PER is set on three premises: 1) It is thematically set in the context of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper and the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries document; 2) It focuses on getting a better understanding of the budgetary institutions, systems and processes at the regional level; and 3) the PER analysis and recommendations are intended to harmonize with the sequence and pace of the Government of Ethiopia's Expenditure Management and Control Program.Publication Republic of Tajikistan : Evaluation of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper Process and Arrangements Under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility(Washington, DC, 2004-07-06)The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank introduced the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) process in 1999 to strengthen the poverty alleviation focus of their assistance to low-income countries. This report reviews Tajikistan s experience with the PRSP process, focusing on the effectiveness of IMF and World Bank support to the process and the extent to which the two institutions lending and non-lending activities in the country are aligned to the objectives of the PRSP approach. The rest of the report is organized as follows. Part two provides brief background accounts of political and economic developments since independence in 1991, including poverty incidence in the late 1990s. The relevance of the PRSP approach, application of the underlying principles, and preliminary evidence on results, are examined in part three. Part four considers the effectiveness of World Bank support, including alignment of that support to the objectives of the PRSP approach. The effectiveness of IMF support, including alignment of programs supported under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) and its predecessor, the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility (ESAF), to PRSP objectives, is assessed in part five. Part six reviews IMF-World Bank collaboration, include the Joint Staff Assessments (JSA) of the PRSP and of collaboration on country operations. Part seven presents main conclusions and lessons.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.Publication Lebanon Economic Monitor, Fall 2022(Washington, DC, 2022-11)The economy continues to contract, albeit at a somewhat slower pace. Public finances improved in 2021, but only because spending collapsed faster than revenue generation. Testament to the continued atrophy of Lebanon’s economy, the Lebanese Pound continues to depreciate sharply. The sharp deterioration in the currency continues to drive surging inflation, in triple digits since July 2020, impacting the poor and vulnerable the most. An unprecedented institutional vacuum will likely further delay any agreement on crisis resolution and much needed reforms; this includes prior actions as part of the April 2022 International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff-level agreement (SLA). Divergent views among key stakeholders on how to distribute the financial losses remains the main bottleneck for reaching an agreement on a comprehensive reform agenda. Lebanon needs to urgently adopt a domestic, equitable, and comprehensive solution that is predicated on: (i) addressing upfront the balance sheet impairments, (ii) restoring liquidity, and (iii) adhering to sound global practices of bail-in solutions based on a hierarchy of creditors (starting with banks’ shareholders) that protects small depositors.Publication The Journey Ahead(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-31)The Journey Ahead: Supporting Successful Migration in Europe and Central Asia provides an in-depth analysis of international migration in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) and the implications for policy making. By identifying challenges and opportunities associated with migration in the region, it aims to inform a more nuanced, evidencebased debate on the costs and benefits of cross-border mobility. Using data-driven insights and new analysis, the report shows that migration has been an engine of prosperity and has helped address some of ECA’s demographic and socioeconomic disparities. Yet, migration’s full economic potential remains untapped. The report identifies multiple barriers keeping migration from achieving its full potential. Crucially, it argues that policies in both origin and destination countries can help maximize the development impacts of migration and effectively manage the economic, social, and political costs. Drawing from a wide range of literature, country experiences, and novel analysis, The Journey Ahead presents actionable policy options to enhance the benefits of migration for destination and origin countries and migrants themselves. Some measures can be taken unilaterally by countries, whereas others require close bilateral or regional coordination. The recommendations are tailored to different types of migration— forced displacement as well as high-skilled and low-skilled economic migration—and from the perspectives of both sending and receiving countries. This report serves as a comprehensive resource for governments, development partners, and other stakeholders throughout Europe and Central Asia, where the richness and diversity of migration experiences provide valuable insights for policy makers in other regions of the world.Publication Argentina Country Climate and Development Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.