African growth miracle or statistical tragedy? Interpreting trends in the data over the past two decades

This paper reviews the current problems of national accounting in Sub-Saharan Africa. With the current uneven application of methods and availability of data, any ranking of countries according to gross domestic product levels is misleading. It is increasingly acknowledged that the problems associated with national accounts in Africa may have caused growth to be underestimated, and there are concerns that gross domestic product does not capture or cohere with concurrent trends on poverty and wealth from other surveys. It is argued that this varies from country to country, and that in some countries current wealth is underestimated, whereas in others recent growth is overestimated

Poor Numbers: How we are misled by African development statistics and what to do about it

Morten Jerven asks: What do we know about income and growth in sub-Saharan Africa? The answer is: much less than we like to think. The data are unreliable and potentially seriously misleading. The question is of great importance. Economic growth rates or per capita income estimates are commonly used in statements about development in Africa

Africa: Why economists get it wrong. Morten Jerven and revisionism.

Macroeconomists working on Africa have got their analysis very wrong, argues Morten Jerven. In his new book, Africa: Why Economists get it wrong, Jerven argues that the study of Africa relies on flawed narratives and data. He questions many of the presuppositions made by popular economists to provide a revisionist account of African economic history

Health Planning in 1960s Africa: International Health Organisations and the Post-Colonial State

This article explores the programme of national health planning carried out in the 1960s in West and Central Africa by the World Health Organization (WHO), in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Health plans were intended as integral aspects of economic development planning in five newly independent countries: Gabon, Liberia, Mali, Niger and Sierra Leone. We begin by showing that this episode is treated only superficially in the existing WHO historiography, then introduce some relevant critical literature on the history of development planning. Next we outline the context for health planning, noting: the opportunities which independence from colonial control offered to international development agencies; the WHO's limited capacity in Africa; and its preliminary efforts to avoid imposing Western values or partisan views of health system organisation. Our analysis of the plans themselves suggests they lacked the necessary administrative and statistical capacity properly to gauge local needs, while the absence of significant financial resources meant that they proposed little more than augmentation of existing structures. By the late 1960s optimism gave way to disappointment as it became apparent that implementation had been minimal. We describe the ensuing conflict within WHO over programme evaluation and ongoing expenditure, which exposed differences of opinion between African and American officials over approaches to international health aid. We conclude with a discussion of how the plans set in train longer processes of development planning, and, perhaps less desirably, gave bureaucratic shape to the post-colonial state

The Political Economy of Agricultural Statistics: Evidence from India, Nigeria and Malawi (SWP 18)

Morten Jerven homepage: http://www.sfu.ca/internationalstudies/jerven.htm

Reading Economics: The Role of Mainstream Economics in International Development Studies Today (SWP 24)

Morten Jerven homepage: http://www.sfu.ca/internationalstudies/jerven.htm

African Growth Recurring: An Economic History Perspective on African Growth Episodes, 1690–2010 (SWP 4)

Morten Jerven homepage: http://www.sfu.ca/internationalstudies/jerven.htm

Users and Producers of African Income: Measuring the Progress of African Economies (SWP 7)

Morten Jerven homepage: http://www.sfu.ca/internationalstudies/jerven.htm

Controversy, Facts and Assumptions: Lessons from Estimating Long Term Growth in Nigeria, 1900–2007 (SWP 13)

Morten Jerven homepage: http://www.sfu.ca/internationalstudies/jerven.htm