Equity and Growth through Economic Research (EAGER)

Newsletter that tracks a USAID-sponsored development project

Excerpt

Restarting and Sustaining Growth and Development in Africa

Over the past two decades, Africa has been burdened by sluggish, often negative economic growth, resulting in reduced welfare for most of the population. Although growth rates have recently improved, the variety of structural adjustment programs that have been put in place still have not yielded politically acceptable rates of growth or development.

EAGER’s Public Strategies for Promoting Growth and Equity component (EAGER/PSGE) has launched a comprehensive research effort on “Restarting and Sustaining Growth and Development in Africa.” A group of EAGER/PSGE consortium members and collaborating African research institutions will be implementing the research, with the Institute for International Development taking the lead.

The initiative is designed to highlight the key obstacles to accelerated growth and to suggest policy departures for achieving broad-based development.

The study is predicated on the existence of linkages between growth (sustained increases in real output per capita) and development (general improvements in welfare).