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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Institutions and Poverty Alleviation in Africa |
Author: | Mbaku, John Mukum |
Year: | 2007 |
Periodical: | African and Asian Studies |
Volume: | 6 |
Issue: | 1-2 |
Pages: | 107-134 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Africa |
Subjects: | development economic policy institutions poverty reduction 1950-1999 Economics and Trade Development and Technology |
External link: | https://doi.org/10.1163/156921007X180604 |
Abstract: | The most urgent policy issue in Africa today is how to create the wealth that each African country needs to deal effectively with poverty and high levels of material deprivation. Efforts, since the early 1960s, to deal with poverty on the continent, have emphasized government redistributive programmes. The results have been quite disappointing, as Africa remains one of the poorest regions of the world, despite the continent's significantly large endowments of human and natural resources. Since the late 1980s, poverty alleviation efforts on the continent have shifted emphasis from government redistributive programmes to wealth creation. The key is to provide each economy with an institutional environment that enhances entrepreneurship (especially among historically marginalized and deprived groups) and maximizes the creation of the wealth that can be used to deal with poverty. Such an institutional environment should also promote peaceful coexistence of each country's various population groups, effectively accommodate minority interests, and adequately constrain the State. Bibliogr., sum. [Journal abstract] |