"This study assesses which agricultural subsectors have the strongest capacity to drive economic growth and poverty reduction in Ethiopia, and what kind of agricultural and nonagricultural growth is needed to achieve the millennium development goal of halving the 1990 poverty rate by 2015. A...

"This paper provides a nuanced perspective on debates about the potential for Africa's smallholder agriculture to stimulate growth and alleviate poverty in an increasingly integrated world. In particular, the paper synthesizes both the traditional theoretical literature on agriculture's role in...

"Participatory approaches are an increasingly prominent technique for designing agricultural strategies within Sub-Saharan Africa. However, such approaches are frequently criticized for either not involving enough stakeholders or limiting the scope of their participation. By analyzing the role...

Despite impressive economic growth rates over the last decade, foreign aid still plays a significant role in Africa's political economies. This book asks when, why, and how foreign aid has facilitated, or hindered, democratization in sub-Saharan Africa. Instead of looking at foreign aid as a...

Participatory approaches are an increasingly prominent technique for designing agricultural strategies in sub-Saharan Africa. However, they are frequently criticised for either not involving enough stakeholders or limiting the scope of their participation. This article concludes from a study of...

Summary As the experience of the 20th century has shown, implementing policies that increase agricultural productivity among smallholders is a particularly promising strategy to achieve pro-poor growth. However, history also reveals major political challenges to adopting this strategy. The paper...

Electoral coalitions are becoming increasingly popular among opposition parties in Africa because they offer many advantages with respect to reducing party fragmentation and increasing incumbent turnovers. At the same time, however, they are often comprised of parties that are defined...

Using the case of Zambia, this paper examines whether structural change translates into reduced poverty and improved social welfare through an empirical and systematic analysis of the country’s growth trajectory during 1991–2010. We find that growth after 2002 was accompanied by...

type="main" <p>Focusing on the case of Senegal under the former President, Abdoulaye Wade, this article examines the impact party politics has on service delivery in urban areas controlled by opposition parties. Senegal's decentralisation process provided opportunities for the central government to...</p>

type="main" <p>This is an introduction to a special issue sponsored by UNU-WIDER focusing on key governance challenges related to addressing gaps in urban service delivery in sub-Saharan Africa. First, due to decentralisation policies in much of Africa, the provision of services is often...</p>