The African Virtual University (AVU) has helped reduce the digital divide in Africa and proven that modern communications technology can succeed in Africa. It has raised the profile of the continent positively and helped establish Africa as a business address. Today, a number of Internet and...

In the study "Can Africa claim the 21st century?" the author argues on the enormous unexploited potential the region has in its people, "a hidden growth reserve" as he refers to them, and, most importantly in its women, who now provide more than half the region's labor, but who lack equal access...

Sub-Saharan Africa's long-term growth performance will need to improve significantly for the region to visibly reduce poverty and raise the standard of living to an acceptable level. Appropriate actions will also be needed to ensure that an adequate share of the growing income is devoted to...

This article summarizes the publication "Revisiting Gowth and Convergence: Is Africa Catching Up?" The neoclassical Solow framework has been the workhorse for empirical analysis of growth in industrial and developing countries. In this framework, steady state economic growth depends on exogenous...

Botswana is one of a small group of countries in the contemporary era, virtually the only African country that has sustained rapid economic growth over an extended period. Over the past three decades, Botswana's real per capita income grew by more than 7 percent per annum, which is comparable to...

This note focuses on the core findings, and recommendations of the 1998 status report on poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), prepared for the Special Program for Assistance for Africa (SPA), a thematic examination of the linkages between gender, growth, and poverty reduction in SSA. Primarily...

? This article outlines the role that the World Bank will play in supporting a modified rural development strategy for the Sub-Saharan Africa region: The Bank will be more selective in targeting countries for assistance in rural development programs, focusing on those that demonstrate commitment...

The institutional crisis affecting economic management in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is a crisis of structural disconnect between formal institutions transplanted from outside and indigenous institutions born of the culture and traditional values of the African past. Building on the findings and...

The policy reforms since 1983 have reduced the fiscal deficit and inflation, helped improve infrastructure services, and shifted relative prices and incentives towards the tradable sector, in general, and towards exports, in particular. The key element of fiscal consolidation up to 1991 was the...

This study reviews the Bank's experience with adjustment lending to Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), from FY80 to FY96. During this period, a total of 163 adjustment operations, for $15 billion have been approved to 37 countries. Of these, a total of 121 have already been evaluated at completion. The...