When the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were announced in 2015, it was clear that success on SDG1—eradication of extreme poverty—depended on Africa’s performance. Recent forecasts from the United Nations and the World Bank suggest that Africa is not going to make it. We should all be concerned about what can be done. The recent World Bank study, Accelerating Poverty Reduction in Africa, offers governments and stakeholders both new suggestions as well as new takes on old recommendations, providing a clear if bumpy road map for future strategies and intervention designs. As an organization, we support and agree with some of the recommendations in the report as well as the report of the IMF and have no doubt that these reports will serve as a key reference point in the coming years. The question, why has poverty in Africa stayed so stubbornly high despite record economic growth is a good place to start whilst referencing the report submitted. According to the report, three main reasons:

1. Less of Africa’s growth translates into poverty reduction because of high initial poverty, including low asset levels and limited access to public services, which prevent households from taking advantage of opportunities;
2. Africa’s increasing reliance on natural resources for income growth rather than agricultural and rural development excludes the 85 percent of the poor population living in rural areas;

• Africa’s high fertility and resulting high population growth mean that even high growth translates into less income per person—a point too often ignored in discussions on the sub-continent and in Washington.

In addressing these worrying trends, the report singles out five areas for particular attention:

1. Reduce fertility
2. Increase agricultural productivity, especially for food crops (an African green revolution)

• Address risk and conflict;

1. Increase domestic resource mobilization and focus resources on the poor and
2. Urban governance for poverty reduction

Despite its importance to economic growth and poverty reduction throughout Asia and Latin America, agriculture remains a neglected sector in Africa. The report appropriately highlights this gap and calls for a focus on transforming the livelihoods of small-holder farm households. One reason for current neglect is the failure of many interventions in rural areas. The report clearly and cogently summarizes a large and recent literature on successes and failures of interventions and policies in Africa and elsewhere to argue for a renewed effort. Food crops are still the basis for the badly needed green revolution in Africa because of the large share of food that is imported; the fact that poorer farmers are more likely to produce staple crops; and, that low profit margins discourage the private sector from investing to develop the value chains in this sector the way that they do for vegetables, fruits, or sesame, for example. The report calls for public sector interventions throughout the staples value chain—in research and development, infrastructure, extension and marketing—noting that interventions that only address one constraint (e.g., input quality) often fail as other binding constraints (e.g., lack of rural roads) kick in. While arguing for an integrated approach, operating on multiple constraints throughout the value chain to improving farm livelihoods, the report admits in the chapter conclusion that this is much more difficult to execute and sustain—especially if external donors are in the driver’s seat instead of domestic agencies and institutions. The report gives short shrift, however, to the difficulty of improving the efficiency of spending in sectors which should be pro-poor, such as health, education, and water, sanitation, and hygiene. Though the report mostly ignores the reasons why the policies and programs African countries implement are not pro-poor. One serious omission is how monopolistic arrangements among the economic elite—for example, high transportation costs caused by lack of competition in the transport sector, or high fertilizer prices caused by a few authorized dealers who keep prices high, and benefit a lot from subsidy programs. In small countries and underdeveloped markets, monopolistic arrangements are more common as competition is hard to achieve. Trade could possibly help, but this would mean removing the trade barriers that cause intra-African trade to be among the costliest in the world. Another omission is a discussion of why African governments have neglected agriculture, especially staple foods. Yes, this sector is hard, but prejudice among urban elites against investing in small-holder agriculture unfortunately seems to persist and does not help generate the breakthroughs needed. The report’s special section on gender does discusses the usual intermediate causes and outcomes associated with women’s inequality (lower school enrollment for girls, high maternal mortality and the burden of providing domestic services, limited legal rights such as owning or inheriting property), but the fundamental cause of the inequality—a specific view about the implications of women’s childbearing role on responsibilities and acceptable behavior in economic, social, political, and private space—is not addressed. While gender norms differ across the continent, they are often less binding for richer women than poorer, and certainly change over time, their importance as the underlying cause of gender inequality deserves mention. In another clime, we are also in support of some of the recommendations made by the IMF which indicates as follows; The IMF Report on Economic Policies for Higher Investment and Growth IMF says, faster growth cannot be secured with the present level of private investment in sub-Saharan Africa, which remains well below that of other regions. The dearth of private investment may be attributed mainly to the perception and expectation by both domestic and foreign investors of high risk and low returns on capital. Reducing risk would improve the attractiveness of holding assets, and help to raise domestic savings as well as investment rates, and reverse capital flight. Among the most important objectives of economic policy should be the following:

• Maintenance of macroeconomic stability. Governments should especially build on the progress that has been made in recent years to reduce budget deficits and thereby reduce the risk that unsustainable fiscal imbalances would result in arrears, default or higher taxes.
• A more efficient tax system. Governments need to improve tax administration and enforcement in combination with steps to eliminate tax exemptions, resist pressures from special interest groups, and eliminate corrupt practices. By broadening the tax base, these steps should make it possible to raise revenue to support important expenditures, while lowering marginal tax rates.
• Improved infrastructure. Serious infrastructure deficiencies, in transportation (ports, roads, railroads), communications, and power generation, remain in most economies in the region. Better allocation of public outlays, as well as opening these sectors to private investment, with appropriate supporting policies to foster competition, would improve infrastructure while limiting the budgetary burden.
• Privatization of state-owned enterprises. Appropriately designed and regulated divestiture should improve efficiency, reduce burdens on the budget, eliminate political interference in decision-making, and provide incentives for more innovation and dynamism.
• More investment in human capital.Additional focus on human capital formation is required, especially through shifting the structure of public spending in favor of better delivery of primary education and health-care and other social services.
• Strong financial systems.Policies to better mobilize savings and enhance financial intermediation should encompass appropriate independence of the central bank from the government; more effective regulation and supervision of the banking system; recapitalization or liquidation of problem banks; and the fostering of a competitive commercial banking system with foreign bank participation.
• Realistic exchange rate. Overall production and exports are hurt by an overvalued currency, which inhibits economic diversification and resilience to future external shocks.
• Openness to international trade. Several studies have shown how exchange and liberalization have improved the growth performance of countries in the region.A number of regional organizations are implementing arrangements to promote intraregional trade liberalization, including through lower import duties and simplification of the tariff structure.
• Regional integration.This will help countries to overcome the disadvantages of their relatively small economic size, and enhance their ability to trade globally.

Governance and Related Issues The importance of better governance for growth and equity is being increasingly recognized by sub-Saharan African governments; the IMF strongly supports this trend. In particular, actions to address governance issues could well encourage private investment by reducing the perceptions of high risk and low returns on capital and help overcome the problems identified in the preceding section. Many countries have initiated measures that are already contributing to better economic performance and poverty reduction, but further broadening and deepening of these actions are clearly needed. Some examples:

• Transparency and accountability in public sector resource management. Kenya has put in place a code of conduct for key public sector staff, and strengthened the Office of the Controller and Auditor-General. Mozambique has begun to publish quarterly budget execution reports.
• Sound and efficient civil service and legal frameworks. Zambia is reducing the public sector workforce partly by retrenchment and containing public sector wage rates, so as to increase public investment and social programs. Cameroon is moving to improve the performance of the judiciary by strengthening its human and financial resources and publishing court decisions.
• Measures to eliminate corruption. Uganda is implementing an anti-corruption action plan through the recently established Ministry of Ethics and Integrity. Tanzania has adopted a National Anti-Corruption Strategy and Action Plan. Nigeria has passed anti-corruption legislation and established an independent commission to implement its provisions; taken steps to recover misappropriated official property from abroad and prosecuted wrongdoers; and is reviewing its anti-money laundering act and compliance with the OECD anti-bribery