Africa and the Millenium Developement Goals (MDGs): What´s Right, What's Wrong and What's Missing

The deadline of 2015 for the MDGs is getting dangerously close. It is well known that most African countries will not meet most MDGs set out in 2000 as an ambitious plan to achieve fast socio-economic progress in developing countries. This article introduces a special issue to the problematic of MDGs in Africa, progress achieved, challenges and what is missing from the MDG agenda. The article provides an overview of the situation with regards to the MDGs, with particular emphasis on the objective of reducing poverty, which is highly associated with the other MDGs. It is shown that the record in poverty reduction has been generally disappointing. Besides, the poverty reduction agenda has contributed to the fall of “grand narratives” of development and the demise of the idea of “development” as understood in the traditions of old development economics and political economy of development. The New Poverty and the MDG agendas have been relatively successful in garnering support to increase international assistance for basic needs in African countries, but are much less impressive in terms of achieved outcomes and their contribution to development strategies. The paper finally introduces the main contents of the special issue and some of the most salient critical points from a set of articles that critically engage with dominant discourses around MDGs in Africa

The political economy of development aid as main source of foreign finance for poor African countries: loss of policy space and possible alternatives from East Asia

This paper discusses the political economy of development aid flows to poor countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and the potential role of China to generate opportunities for a recovery of policy space in these countries. We argue that the loss of policy space in many poor SSA countries is associated with donor-recipient relations in aid flows over the past two decades. The influential role of Western donor agencies and the growing marginalisation of SSA countries from international capital flows have left scarce policy space to their governments for more innovative trade, agricultural and industrial policies. The recent New Aid Agenda and the concomitant Western aid harmonization through budget support are likely enhance donors’ influence on policy making and to exacerbate this process despite claims of greater ‘ownership’. Learning from East Asian success stories has been hampered by the unequal bargaining power of SSA governments vis-à-vis their ‘development partners’. More recently, China has started to become an increasingly important player for some SSA countries and Chinese FDI and aid flows are already s significant reality there. Typically these ‘new’ relations may be seen with suspicion by Western ‘development’ partners, but we argue that this (and the cooperation of other Asian governments in a South-South cooperation framework) may be a significant opportunity for some SSA countries to regain part of the policy space lost in the 1980s and 1990s