African Economic Development

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Juris Doctor

Sub-Saharan Africa has been described as the development challenge of the 21st Century. This region comprises over a billion people in some 48 mostly low-income countries where extreme, abject poverty is still a major problem. It is under these conditions that African countries strive to develop their economies and improve standards of living. This most important and urgent work is the subject of this course. The main objectives of the course are to familiarize students with the most important economic development issues confronting and challenging African countries today and to demonstrate how economic analysis may be used to better understand and address these development issues. With this overall focus, the course begins with a brief historical account of the economic impacts of slavery and colonialism in Africa. This is followed by an analysis of Africa’s post-independence development experience, often characterized as a growth tragedy, and the economic policies and other factors that help to explain that performance. The course then turns to its main subject—current African development issues, including: the region’s transition to more market-friendly economies; Africa’s unfinished structural reform agenda, particularly downsizing and changing the role and functions of the state in the economy, including the establishment of new regulatory systems and divestiture and privatization of state-owned enterprises; the goal of macroeconomic stabilization, including expenditure and taxation policies, external debt management, and the role of Africa’s central banks and exchange rate regimes; strengthening health and education programs to shore up human capital development; the role and effectiveness of social safety net programs in directly combating poverty and income inequality; the capacity and quality of public sector institutions and the difficulties of governance and economic policy making in ethnically divided and war-torn African states; Africa’s participation in world trade and access to private capital markets; the challenges of expanding Africa’s physical infrastructure and the scope for public-private partnerships; the task of widening and deepening the financial sector in African countries; the agricultural sector’s potential role in supporting rural development and economic growth more broadly; the effectiveness of official development aid (ODA), including the role of the African Development Bank and other development aid agencies, and finally the scope for regional economic cooperation and integration among African countries, including the potential role of the newly established African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTA). The classes will comprise both lectures and seminar-style discussions, including several organized class debates, panel discussions and student presentations. Students are expected to prepare for each class by doing the required readings and participating actively in class discussions, presentations and debates.