Between January 2006 and April 2008 the real price of food traded on world markets rose by around 80%. The factors behind this dramatic surge are varied and, to an extent, remain contested, although fundamental shifts in patterns of demand, the effects of climate change, and the greater use of...

African central banks have covered an extraordinary distance since the early 1990s—closing the gap, in the process, between their own policy challenges and those of richer-country central banks. Some striking differences are nonetheless easily missed, amid the many parallels between central...

It is broadly recognised that vigorous agricultural growth is essential for African development, both in support of aggregate economic growth and a structural transformation of the economy towards industrialisation, and of poverty reduction and improved food security. For the first, this is...

Evidence abounds to support the view that while health, measured by life expectancy, had improved, and converged in the world, the income or economic prosperity did not. Recent literature tried to show that poor health and endemic diseases in Africa may constitute a barrier to growth. However,...