Featured Publication Africa's Silk Road: China and India's New Economic Frontier  This book, just launched by the World Bank, and written by Harry Broadman, Africa Region Economic Advisor, discusses how a recent, massive increase in African trade and investment by Asia’s two emerging economic giants—China and India—holds great potential for growth and job creation in Africa. This new economic frontier extends beyond trade and investment in natural resources, according to the new data presented in the book. However, the book also cautions that there are major asymmetries in the economic relations between the two regions. It is imperative that both sides of this promising economic relationship address asymmetries and obstacles to its continued expansion through reforms. The book recommends an array of trade and investment reforms within and between both regions to deepen the growing South-South ties and address imbalances that could prevent African economies to benefit from the increasingly important roles China and India play in the global economy.
Reforms suggested in the book include: “At-the-border” reforms, such as elimination of China and India’s escalating tariffs on Africa’s leading exports; and elimination of Africa’s tariffs on certain inputs that make its own exports uncompetitive. “Behind-the-border” reforms in Africa, to unleash competitive market forces, strengthen its basic market institutions, and improve governance. “Between-the-border” improvements in trade facilitation infrastructure and institutions to decrease transactions costs, such as customs administration, transport and communications. Reforms that leverage linkages between investment and trade to allow African businesses’ participation in modern global production-sharing networks generated by Chinese and Indian investments in Africa.
"This new ‘Silk Road’ potentially presents to Sub-Saharan Africa—home to 300 million of the globe’s poorest people and the world’s most formidable development challenge—a significant, and to date, rare, opportunity to hasten its international integration and growth,” said Harry G. Broadman, World Bank Africa Region Economic Advisor and author of the study. Broadman further notes, "It is imperative that both sides of this promising South-South economic relationship address asymmetries and obstacles to its continued expansion through reforms,” noted Broadman, “This is not only in the best interests of Africa’s economic development, but in China and India’s own economic fortunes." Read more: Press release from the 2006 Annual Meetings, Story, Book Questions? Please contact Harry Broadman or Gozde Isik. The Africa Action Plan
 The Africa Action Plan: this comprehensive strategy paper lays out the World Bank's proposed plan for facilitating country-led economic and social development across Africa, through a collaborative approach between donors and governments.
Read related story - Development Committee Endorses Africa Action Plan Recent Publications Arbache, J. and Couri, C. Are Fixed and Cell Phone Substitutes or Complements?: The Case of Brazil. May 2006. This paper investigates whether the growth of cell telephony in Brazil after privatization is taking place at the expense of the fixed telephony. The authors find, first, that despite the rapid growth in cell telephony, complementarity between both types of telephony is still dominant at the household level; second, phone subscription is strongly determined by income, demographic and regional characteristics; and third, cell telephony plays a substitutive role with respect to fixed telephony in rural areas, but a complementary one in urban areas. Arbache, J. Has Macroeconomic Policy been Pro-Poor in Brazil?, in Giovanni Andrea Cornia (edt.), 'Pro-poor Macroeconomics: Potential and Limitations', New York, Palgrave, 2006. Arbache, J.; Blake, A.; Sinclair, M.T.; Teles, V. Tourism and Poverty Relief. February, 2006. Arbache, J. and Santos, M.H. Trade Openness and Gender Discrimination. October 2005. Page, J. and Plaza, S. Migration, Remittances and Development: A Review of Global Evidence. This paper was presented at the Plenary Session of the African Economic Research Consortium, May 29, 2005. Page, J. Strategies for Pro-Poor Growth: Pro-Poor, Pro-Growth or Both? (PDF 230KB) Forthcoming. This paper examines possible tensions between pro-poor and economic growth. Chief Economist John Page looks at the role of pro-poor growth versus economic growth, ultimately concluding that the two objectives must be linked for successful development. Adams, R. and Page, J. 'Do International Migration and Remittances Reduce Poverty in Developing Countries? in World Development, 33:10, 1465-1669, 2005. Page, J.; Nankani, G.; Judge, L. 'Human Rights and Poverty Reduction Strategies: Moving Towards Convergence' in Phillip Alston and Mary Robinson (eds) Human Rights and Development: Towards Mutual Reinforcement. (475-497) Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2005. Go, D.S.; Kearney, M.; Robinson, S.; Thierfelder, K. An analysis of South Africa's Value Added Tax. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 367. Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2005. Gelb, A; Ngo, B.; Ye, X. Implementing Performance Based Aid in Africa: The Country Policy and Institutional Assessment. Africa Region Working Paper Series No. 72. Washington, DC: The World Bank, July 2004.
For more publications, see the Africa Region Working Paper Series
Ongoing Research Ye, X. (2005) The Discrepancies in GDP Growth Estimates for Sub-Saharan Africa. |
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