2005 has been an extraordinary year for international development – and it is not over yet. The Sachs Report, Commission for Africa, G8 and Millennium Summit have provided the intellectual and financial building blocks. The Hong Kong Ministerial meeting of the WTO and the EU Council, both in December, could add to the promises and opportunities. Not all ambitions have been fulfilled, but new political relationships have been declared, and aid to Africa will more than double in coming years.

As the focus shifts to implementation, the practical details move centre-stage. How should additional aid be spent? To support what development models? And taking what account of Africa’s complex politics? The answers to these questions are much-debated – but they are central to the next phase of the international development effort. Choosing the right answers could transform the opportunities for Africa’s poorest people; choosing the wrong answers could lead to disillusion and defeat.

The UK’s Economic and Social Research Council and the Development Studies Association of the UK and Ireland both promote top quality research that is invaluable in the formation of evidence-based policy. They combine forces on 9 December to host a policy forum that will help take debate about Africa’s future beyond the 2005 agenda and into the implementation phase.

The forum presents cutting edge research from three of the ESRC’s leading centres on international development. While challenging and stimulating thinking among policymakers and NGOs, the focus will be practical and forward looking: how can the promises made in 2005 be turned into policy that delivers lasting change for Africa?

A PDF version of the whole discussion document can be downloaded here.

Listen to the Today Programme feature by Mike Wooldridge (Real Player needed - will open automatically if you have it loaded onto your machine). To download Real Player visit the relevant BBC pages.

 

ESRC Research Centre Presentations (click on title to download the Powerpoint Presentation)

Globalisation: Crucial Choices for Africa
Professor Jan Aart Scholte. The Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation (CSGR), University of Warwick.

What policies toward globalisation would bring the greatest benefits to development in Africa? Professor Jan Aart Scholte identifies five strategic options: 1) laissez-faire neoliberalism; 2) economic nationalism; 3) a global social market; 4) global social democracy; and 5) transformist visions that seek development beyond markets. Development initiatives of recent years mark a broad policy shift from neoliberalism towards a global social market. Scholte examines whether more ambitious policy reorientations are needed to deliver wholesale and lasting development in Africa.

The Importance of Understanding the Local
Wellbeing in Development Countries (WeD) Research Group, University of Bath & University of Addis Ababa

In order to reduce poverty in Africa, the aid interventions recommended in the 2005 initiatives must be designed and implemented with a thorough understanding of local realities. Using new research from four rural communities working with WeD in Ethiopia, this paper shows how Africa Commission recommendations could produce the desired results if they are implemented in ways which take account of Africa's 'invisible networks', power structures and cultural beliefs and practices. By illustrating systematic obstacles which could affect policy implementation, and by identifying new connections between the discourses and practices of donors/government and local realities, important positive implications for the future practice of governments and agencies can be drawn.

Trade and the Rapid Reduction of Poverty in Africa
Dr Francis Teal. The Global Poverty Research Group (GPRG), University of Oxford.

This presentation from Dr Francis Teal offers insights on how the ambitious agenda for action set out by the Commission for Africa can best be implemented, with a particular emphasis on economic growth and job creation. If poverty reduction is dependent on a seven per cent increase in Africa’s economy, where is this growth most likely to come from? Which sectors need to grow and which policies are necessary for their success? And finally, is it possible to design policy in this area without hard choices and selectivity?