Thinking and practice related to the connections between 'development' and violent conflict have evolved since the 1990s. While giving some quantitative indication of trends, this paper draws on interviews with individuals with sustained senior experience in government departments and international organisations, combined with reflections from research and teaching. The paper honours the work of Astri Suhrke who more than most has probed these themes. A narrative arc, with different strands of scholarship, debate, and practice, reflects a growing sophistication of analysis and integration of ideas and disciplines; rising confidence in outsiders' (especially Western agencies') ability to 'solve' apparently internal conflicts in low- and middle-income countries; a series of failures and a crisis of faith, above all in the 'liberal peace' and possibly also in 'development'; a big change in the geo-political context; and key areas where ideas, and ways of thinking, are shifting, though policy-oriented organisations may not be catching up. Sub-plots include identifying gaps, highlighting areas where analysis and practice may intensify in coming years, and the eternal quest for effective systems of classification.

We discuss scoping research carried out over a short period of time in Majakaneng in Bojanala District in the platinum belt in South Africa. The research aims to gather and analyse evidence on the effects of investments in high-value agricultural exports, in this specific case the production of blueberries, on the well-being of poor women. High-value agricultural exports have been identified as offering a particularly promising path to structural transformation, yet there remain fears that capital-intensive agricultural export businesses in low- and middle-income countries may have very few 'inclusive' development benefits. We argue that exploratory scoping research, or 'finding out fast', can make a major contribution to the effective design of research projects through, for example, improving sampling strategies and refining the selection of relevant consumer goods for survey questionnaires. We show how the scoping exercise could strengthen the larger research project if, for example in the selection and training of enumerators, closer attention can be paid to overcoming the difficulty of translating the informal terms used by different respondents to refer to similar but not identical consumer durables.

Privatisation is the most tangible manifestation of the withering of the state required by the Washington consensus. The policy has been gaining ground since the early 1980s (Cook 1997). About 70 per cent of all structural adjustment loans made during the 1980s contained a privatisation component (Cook and Kirkpatrick 1995). This has been especially true of structural adjustment loans to sub-Saharan Africa (Berg 1994; Bennell 1997).

ABSTRACT Developing countries are balance‐of‐payments constrained. In this context, high‐value agricultural exports can make a greater contribution to structural change than development economists and developing country governments have typically acknowledged. This is thanks to dramatic recent changes in agricultural production, consumption and trade. These transformations are obscured by a simple classification system that has not adapted to changing patterns of global capitalist production. This article examines some recent efforts to rethink the basis of economic classification; it contributes to this emerging literature by proposing a way to think about the distinctions among economic activities that builds directly from the observation of production rather than a method of ex‐post mapping of trade data. A more accurate classification of economic activities would, the authors suggest, help policy officials design more coherent and growth‐enhancing industrial policies in support of accelerated structural change and productivity growth. The article draws on primary fieldwork in Ethiopia in particular, but also on fieldwork in South Africa and on secondary evidence.

Life history interviews from Ethiopia and Uganda, organised around experiences of wage labour, provide rich evidence on the working conditions of many poor, rural women and on what leads them to work for wages. The life histories confirm and illuminate arguments based on large-scale socio-economic surveys carried out in these two countries. Further, findings from the surveys and life histories challenge an influential literature that not only celebrates women's agency in poor rural areas, but also remains committed to methodological individualism and ideas of choice. Drawing on primary and secondary evidence from Africa (and elsewhere), we insist that violent coercion and catastrophe trump maximising rational selection among alternatives; that the social is fundamental to individual behaviour; and the non-market is key to (labour) market participation. We also provide a brief discussion of the policy implications of this research.

Economists have historically tended to identify industrial processes and technological sophistication with manufacturing, and not with agriculture. This chapter illustrates the substantial scope to apply sophisticated technologies and industrial processes necessary to shift resources out of low-productivity activities into higher-productivity activities, i.e. to generate ‘structural change’ in the production of ‘fresh’ agricultural export production. Leveraging the concept of the ‘industrialization of freshness’, this chapter uses evidence from South Africa’s fresh-fruit industry to show how advances in technology have been a key mechanism through which structural transformation towards high-value fruit has occurred in the industry. The chapter also shows how building capabilities to harness technological changes is necessary for increased market access through enabling producers to keep up with escalating quality standards; to comply with the many—and complex—sanitary and phytosanitary requirements; and to adapt to climate change. However, despite evidence of dynamism in fruit production, effective structural transformation in the South African fruit industry has been limited by widespread underinvestment in infrastructure—ports, rural internet capacity, water infrastructure, and technical capacity.

Abstract Most economists think there is little wage employment in Africa and doubt the potential for faster growth of paid employment. They favour supply-side measures encouraging self-employment. The statistical base of conventional views is extremely unreliable. Even the poor statistics that are available do not support pessimism about wage employment in African countries, which has been expanding (and as a share of total employment). Huge numbers of wage workers, including women in domestic service, agricultural child workers, and, often, factory workers, are also invisible in the data. There is no reason for pessimistic predictions about slow fertility rate decline in Africa. There are realistic policies to encourage a faster rate of growth of wage opportunities, for example, to increase demand for young and female rural workers. Also, employment protection legislation (EPL) is not a brake on investment, productivity increases, and growth; excessive labour market ‘flexibility’ subsidizes inefficient enterprises.

Raising and sustaining long-run growth rates is made more difficult by the complexity of economic growth and by the complexity of growth theory debates. Nonetheless, the investment rate is central to long-run growth and development. Growth sustained by high investment rates will also involve structural change: a shift of resources into high-productivity economic activities. This chapter combines discussion of investment—why it matters, what economic policies help to raise investment rates and keep them high—with discussion of ‘industrial policy’. But the terrain of industrial policy has expanded to take account of new high-productivity activities, of servicification, and of agribusiness; policy officials thus need to refine the criteria used to make resource allocation and incentive decisions accordingly. A particularly important political economy constraint on investment rates is the non-inflationary supply of wage goods.

Abstract Chapter 10 highlights policy priorities capable of generating large productivity improvements, balance of payments improvements, and big increases in employment, especially for rural women. Growth, structural transformation, and welfare improvements in African economies require a sustained high investment rate, led by public sector spending to maximize crowding in of private investment; they require state support for the development of ‘national champion’ firms (and farms); they cannot be sustained without a massive export drive; investment needs to be encouraged in specific kinds of labour-intensive economic activities. This ‘possibilist’ strategy depends developing capabilities for monitoring performance and disciplining recipients of state resources; among the relevant targets for firms are measures to encourage the effective organization and voice of the workers they employ. The strategy also has to include policies to expand the non-inflationary supply of basic wage goods, including intervention to manage grain prices.

Industrial policy may be back in vogue, but with fundamental fissures remaining between different conceptions of industrial policy, there is no consensus. We emphasize this by focusing particularly on structuralist rationalizations for industrial policy. These give a special sector- or product-specific role to manufacturing as an engine of growth. While premature deindustrialization is widespread, it is not unavoidable. One factor widening the scope of industrial policy is the increasing breadth of productive activities that are industrial in nature. We draw out the implications, particularly of structuralist development economics, but also of the blurring of boundaries between sectors, for the gains from industrial hubs. Hubs can potentially deepen the growth-pulling role of manufacturing and cognate activities, thus contributing to industrialization and growth. This, however, requires policy that supports hubs to catalyse dynamic processes of structural change, rather than creating enclaves or merely leading to static gains.

Abstract Ideas about poverty and poverty reduction policy are clouded by misleading measures and unreliable evidence. National statistical organizations (NSOs) are under-resourced and the collection and dissemination of data are compromised by political pressures. Allegedly pro-poor policies have had an inegalitarian impact in rural Africa. Conventional views expecting that support spread across smallholder farmers will reduce poverty are based on skewed evidence and ideology. Large farms have a bigger effect on poverty reduction through labour markets. ‘Gold standard’ poverty measures based on consumption surveys are unreliable and misleading. Composite indices are even less useful. There are better ways to assess deprivation. The poorest typically live in small households with few men in them. Women and children in these households suffer the risks of teenage pregnancy; they risk undernutrition because of a monotonous and undiversified diet; they can acquire hardly any basic consumer wage goods; they depend on access to wage employment opportunities.

Unevenness and inequalities form a central fact of African economic experiences. This book challenges conventional wisdoms about economic performance and possible policies for economic development in African countries, using the striking variation in economic performance as a starting point. African Economic Development: Evidence, Theory, and Policy highlights not only difference between countries, but also variation within countries. It focuses on issues relating to gender, class, and ethnic identity, such as neo-natal mortality, school dropout, and horticultural and agribusiness exports. Variations in these areas point to opportunities for changing perfomance, reducing reducing inequalities, learning from other policy experiences, and escaping the ties of structure and the legacies of a colonial past. African Economic Development rejects teleological illusions and Eurocentric prejudice, criticizing a range of orthodox and heterodox economists for their cavalier attitude to evidence. Instead, it shows that seeing the contradictions of capitalism for what they are - fundamental and enduring - may help policy officials protect themselves against the misleading idea that development can be expected to be a smooth, linear process, or that it would be if certain impediments were removed. Drawing on decades of research and policy experience, this book combines careful use of available evidence from a range of African countries with economic insights to make the policy case for specific types of public sector investment.

The evidence does not support gloomy generalizations about an irreversible African environmental crisis or pessimistic arguments that barriers to adopting Green Revolution technologies are insuperable. Although evidence on agricultural technology in Africa is often unreliable, food output and grain yields do appear to have risen strongly in some African economies.. Huge variations in crop yields, including within similar agro-ecological zones, suggest massive potential for policies to promote a rapid increase in yields. Agricultural research and development (R&D) within African countries—and production on many large-scale farms—has shown that dramatically higher yields are possible. Crop yield improvements—with the aid of suitable high-yield varieties (HYVs), public agricultural research spending, and especially investment in irrigation—are possible without draconian resettlement schemes, without wasteful extension service spending, and without recourse to micro-finance schemes. The methods underpinning commonly produced estimates of yields are unreliable, calling into question conventional wisdom that small farms are more efficient than larger farms.

Abstract Economists from very different backgrounds often counsel against a fast growth of imports—and it is certainly true that the balance of payments constraint all too easily derails growth episodes. But the level of output is more important than an obsession with the obsessive pursuit of macroeconomic balance; macroeconomic policy has to serve productive goals rather than vice versa; and policy needs to enable rapid import growth to raise the overall level of output. African countries urgently need to push for rapid export expansion. This chapter argues against International Monetary Fund (IMF) balance of payments approaches. It also argues that the evidence undermines the export pessimism common among many structuralist economists. There is compelling evidence suggesting the need for competitive (undervalued) exchange rates; these are more effective when combined with targeted policies encouraging investment in specific activities that satisfy the criteria we set out here and in other chapters.

Industrial policy has a long history both in practice and in theory. It became a leading focus of development research and policy analysis after the end of the Second World War, although its meaning, scope, and instruments have varied significantly, and it has been the subject of sustained criticism and debate, especially during the 1980s and 1990s. Noting that industrial policy in fact never went away, and at a moment when it has returned to centre stage, this volume offers a comprehensive reference work that presents different schools of thought regarding industrial policy and reflects the evolution in contemporary thinking, alongside empirical evidence from advanced, emerging, and developing economies. This volume also makes the connection between industrial policy and other policies. The volume reviews the theoretical perspectives and methodological aspects of the study of industrial policy, and uses case studies of policies and practices to offer new insights for policymakers, practitioners, and policy researchers. Contributors identify and assess evolving challenges to industrial policy and the shifting terrain of the industrial. They emphasize a political economy approach rather than reducing industrial policy to a technical exercise. The Handbook is forward looking, while also presenting a comprehensive review of the evolving context and trajectories of industrial policy.

Balance is a powerful idea in economics—in equilibrium economics, in strategies of balanced growth, and many other strategies. This chapter argues for a different understanding of the history of capitalism and, therefore, of policy and strategy. The idea of imbalance is a springboard to explore the ideas of Albert Hirschman. These include the concept of linkages and the dynamics of unbalanced growth (pressures, tensions, and disequilibrium as the motor of change), the principle of the hiding hand, and a focus on unintended consequences and poorly measured side effects of development projects and policies. In line with Hirschman’s ‘possibilism’, we argue that the critiques of large ‘mega-projects’ are misleading. Hirschman also highlighted the difference between economists who think a country’s prospects are determined by its ‘endowments’ (what it is and has) and those more interested in what a country does and becomes through what it does.

Policy officials are often influenced by two broad varieties of conventional wisdom: the set of ideas broadly associated with neoclassical economics; and those ideas flowing from third worldist, anti-imperialist, and structuralist development economics. We show how these apparently opposing perspectives often have a surprising amount in common. Reflexes of ‘impossibilism’ and ‘naive optimism’ are often shared across an ideological divide. Thus, pessimism in orthodox trade theory suggests no African economy can hope to accelerate structural change by defying the signals of comparative advantage; and pessimism in structuralist trade arguments claims limited gains from exporting, especially from exporting primary commodities while the terms of trade are declining. Both forms of pessimism can easily switch to naive optimism when they imagine the ease of rapid and ‘inclusive’ development. But the switch requires that unrealistic conditions are put in place: perfectly competitive markets or idealized South–South cooperation.

This book challenges conventional wisdoms both about economic performance and about policies for economic development in African countries. Its starting point is the striking variation in economic performance: unevenness and inequalities form a central fact. The authors highlight not only differences between African countries but also variations within countries, differences often organized around distinctions of gender, class, and ethnic identity. For example, school dropout and neonatal mortality have been reduced, particularly for some classes of women in some areas. Horticultural and agribusiness exports have grown far more rapidly in some countries than others. These variations (and many others) point to opportunities for changing performance, reducing inequalities, learning from other African policy experiences, and escaping the ties of structure and legacies of a colonial past. The book rejects teleological illusions and Eurocentric prejudice, but does pay close attention to the results of policy in more industrialized parts of the world. Seeing the contradictions of capitalism for what they are—fundamental and enduring—may help policy officials protect themselves against the misleading idea that development is likely to be a smooth, linear process, or that it would be were certain impediments removed. The authors criticize a wide range of orthodox and heterodox economists, especially for their cavalier attitude to statistical sources. Drawing on decades of research and policy experience, they combine careful use of available evidence from a range of African countries with heterodox political economy insights (mainly derived from Kalecki, Kaldor, and Hirschman) to make the policy case for specific types of public sector investment.

Even where capitalist expansion brings about dramatic and progressive changes, it is always and everywhere contradictory, uneven, and brutal. All good things do not go together. African economic experiences have—similarly—been contradictory. That is one reason why efforts to fit African economic experiences into linear narratives of ‘tragic growth’ or ‘Africa Rising’ are doomed. African economic development is also extremely diverse. This variation is not just between countries. There is also huge variation, perhaps more significantly, within countries. That is why we argue against relying heavily on averages or on continent-wide pronouncements based on just a handful of countries. This variation, as we argue in this chapter and in others, is also often a useful analytical starting point to consider the possible and to identify potential for economic policy to bring about change.