Aid and Reform in Africa: Lessons from Ten Case Studies

Winner of Choice magazine's Outstanding Academic Title award! Since the early 1980s, virtually every African country has received large amounts of aid to stimulate policy reform. The results have varied enormously. Ghana and Uganda were successful reformers that grew rapidly and reduced poverty. Ethiopia and Cote d'Ivoire have shown significant reform in recent years, but it remains to be seen whether it will be sustainable. 'Aid and Reform in Africa' summarizes the findings from case studies that investigate whether, when, and how foreign aid has affected economic policy in Africa. The main findings are: • Policy formation is primarily driven by domestic political economy. • Large amounts of aid to countries with poor policies sustain those policies. • Overall, donors have not discriminated effectively among different countries and different phases of the reform process. The book concludes that donors have three basic instruments that they can use to encourage adoption of good economic policies in developing countries: money, conditionality, and technical assistance/policy dialog. The case studies in this project show examples in which each of these instruments helped countries' improve their policies.