The Leadership Factor in African Policy Reform and Growth

In 1997 the World Bank’s two vice-presidents for Sub-Saharan Africa attributed a significant improvement in Africa’s growth prospects to the advent of a new generation of leaders, replacing their “once largely statist and corrupt” predecessors. This paper begins by tracing the evolution of African chief executives over the past two decades. Of 48 holding office on 1 January 1999, 22 were in power a decade earlier and eight already ten years before that. Examination of ten countries, with focus on Kenya and Zambia, raises the question: why, after these incumbents had presided over economic catastrophe, were socio-political structures unable to replace them with better leaders? A review of leading treatments of the political economy of economic reform highlights the dichotomy between interest-group analysis, versus studies that accord a major role to the unpredictable advent of individuals with qualities that, by promoting policy reform, help launch their countries onto paths of rapid growth. Given the multitude of problems facing most African countries, even leaders of extraordinary ability and “vision” would find it difficult to guide them rapidly through the required reforms. However, a few concrete steps on the leadership’s part to raise agricultural production and promote export of labor-intensive manufactures would greatly increase the prospects for accelerated growth. The paper challenges other social scientists to tell us more about how African social structures can create power bases for “visionary” individuals. In addition, can donors and other outsiders help nurture “visionary” leaders who will promote rather than hinder growth and development? Apart from withholding support from, and even active opposition to, corrupt incumbents, many options exist for helping the former implement reforms. Assisting them to gain power, while a desirable goal, is more problematic.