Chapter 1: Why Study African Economic Development?

The problem of economic development is not new nor did it originate in Africa, as all countries of the world were at one time or the other developing countries. Yet, it is not so difficult to see why the concept of development is so essential to Africanists and the study of Africa in general. After all, African economic development involves growth and the general improvement in quality of life and overall human welfare. Yet, by many measures of human welfare, Africa has not performed well, lagging behind the rest of the world until between 2000 and the end of the commodity super cycle in 2014 when it emerged the second fastest growing region in the world after Asia.¹ For instance, Collier and Gunning (1999) estimate that, during the 1980s, Africa’s per capita gross domestic product (GDP) declined by 5% below the average for all low-income developing countries and 6.2% during the 1990–1994 period.