Africa's growth dividend? Lived poverty drops across much of the continent

Though Africa has recorded high levels of economic growth over the past decade, previous Afrobarometer surveys of citizens found little evidence that this growth had reduced levels of poverty in any consistent way (Dulani, Mattes, & Logan, 2013). However, new data from Afrobarometer Round 6, collected across 35 African countries, suggest a very different picture. While “lived poverty” remains pervasive across much of the continent, especially in Central and West Africa, we now see evidence that the decade of economic growth seems to have finally delivered broad-based reductions in poverty. “Lived poverty” (an index that measures the frequency with which people experience shortages of basic necessities) retreated across a broad range of countries. In the roughly three-year period between Round 5 (2011/2013) and Round 6 (2014/2015) surveys, our data suggest that “lived poverty” fell in 22 of 33 countries surveyed in both rounds. However, these changes show no systematic relation to recent rates of economic growth. While growing economies are undoubtedly important, what appears to be more important in improving the lives of ordinary people is the extent to which national governments and their donor partners put in place the type of development infrastructure that enables people to build better lives

Working Paper No. 2012/40 Ghana: The Limits of External Democracy Assistance

Ghana’s experience since the early 1990s indicates that external aid can significantly impact a country’s democratic transition. External democracy assistance has been a crucial, positive factor in Ghana’s steady evolution into an electoral democracy over the past two decades. Continuing gaps in the quality of Ghana’s democracy confirms, however, that even sustained external support and encouragement cannot easily overcome local elite resistance to specific reforms as well as structural and cultural obstacles prevailing in the domestic environment, at least in the short and medium terms

A Study of Ghana’s Electoral Commission

Governance institutions have been integral to post-1990 African democratic reforms. Previous studies that assessed governance institutions in Africa, and Ghana, in particular, reveal poor performance – institutions are weak and lack credibility. Further, the discourse on governance institutions reveal an over-concentration of research and policy attention on non-performing and under-performing institutions which has created a deficit in knowledge about national and regional institutions in West Africa that have been relatively successful against all odds. The Electoral Commission (EC) has not received any staid attention in the study of governance institutions in Ghana. Yet, prospects for democratic governance in Ghana largely depend on the effectiveness of the EC in managing credible elections