PAYING ATTENTION TO AFRICAN PROGRESS

What We’re Learning: The world needs more researchers thinking about what’s working in Africa, and what isn’t.

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is the leading nonprofit economics research organization in the United States. Yet very few of the researchers at NBER—indeed, very few researchers anywhere—have a sophisticated understanding of African economic issues. To help fill this gap in knowledge about African development, we are helping NBER launch a program to draw more economists into the field and bring more attention to recent trends in African economic development.

Right now, the popular conception of Africa is that it’s a failed continent, plagued by problems that are deep-rooted and seemingly insoluble. But a lot of that conventional wisdom is conjecture. The world needs more researchers thinking about what’s really happening—and working—in African development.

The truth is, many African countries have made great economic progress in recent years, but these successes are neither well-known nor well-understood. As a whole, sub-Saharan Africa’s economy has grown steadily in recent years (approximately 5 percent annually since 2004), and policy makers in many countries have achieved much greater macroeconomic stability. For example, a group of countries including Ghana, Mozambique, Rwanda, Senegal, and Tanzania have combined better governance with economic aid, rising foreign investment, and export diversification to speed up their growth. These countries can benefit from studies that will help them sustain this momentum, and other countries can benefit from well-researched analyses of these country’s experiences.

NBER will help fill this need by commissioning 40 original research projects that will encourage collaboration among experienced U.S.-based economists, up-and-coming scholars, and their African counterparts. Together, they will explore critical questions in the field of African development, such as the impact of health on economic growth, how central banks should manage fluctuating commodity prices, and African trade policies.

Researchers funded by NBER’s program will visit African countries and interact with African officials and researchers. They will also be encouraged to work with African co-authors when appropriate.

NBER’s project will include annual research conferences and will culminate in 2012 with a major policy conference in Africa. The research presented there will be arranged in a format that will be useful to policymakers in Africa, to guarantee that this is not merely an academic exercise.

By that time, NBER hopes not only that its researchers will have advanced the field with their specific findings, but also that they’ve brought attention to African development in general, established stronger relationships between western and African researchers, documented success stories, and made African development a more popular field among economists.