Drawing upon both conceptual and empirical evidence, this volume argues the case for the centrality of social policy in development, focusing particularly on the message that social policy needs to be closely intertwined with economic policy. It is argued that social policy can provide the...

This paper identifies three types of welfare regimes in Africa, based on the insight that tax and expenditure regimes are closely associated. Using cluster analysis, the author highlights historical legacies in current welfare policies, demonstrating that welfare regimes in Africa have been...

This paper explores the social, economic and ideological context within which the World Summit for Social Development took place. As its subtitle implies, the discussion focuses particularly on some of the assumptions about global trends that were prevalent in 1995 and evaluates their adequacy...

The paper argues that over the years aid has lost its initial “developmental purpose” which was to help developing countries to overcome structural constraints on their mobilisation of domestic resources or conversion of these resources into investment. This shows up in the low levels of...

One commonly observed phenomena about taxation in Africa are regional differences and the fact that southern African countries have higher levels of shares of taxation in GDP. This article argues that the major source of differences in 'tax effort' is the colonial histories of various countries....