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Abstract
This paper explores the current transition from the MDG framework to the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) framework in the post-2015 development agenda, with specific emphasis on how the SDGs with their aim of ‘Transforming our World’ might guide economic development and policy in Africa. The aim is to investigate the scope and implications of the post-MDG Agenda for Africa against the background of distinct disparities in development progress across the African continent, rapid urbanization, the availability of new technologies, and the emergence of parallel comprehensive new frameworks for managing global climate change and for creating synergies between China’s transformation over the coming decades and Africa’s Agenda 2063. Drawing on the changing shape of development finance and new insights into the role of public entrepreneurship for development, we make proposals for advancing African agency in the context of these new frameworks, and conclude with policy recommendations for the future.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. The instructive textual record of this confrontation between Kofi Annan and the World Council of Churches is available at https://www.oikoumene.org/en/resources/documents/commissions/international-affairs/united-nation-relations/special-sessions-of-the-un-general-assembly/special-session-of-the-general-assembly-on-the-implementation-of-the-outcome-of-the-world-summit-for-social-development-and-further-initiatives-aeuroegeneva-2000aeur.
2. The Africa Platform on Development Effectiveness ‘brings consultation, coordination and a common voice to Africa’s development perspectives, strategies and policies focusing on capacity development, aid effectiveness and south-south cooperation. Development effectiveness is the ability to achieve results that positively impact on people’s lives and societies in a sustainable way, by strengthening their capacities to manage and promote their own human wellbeing and by strengthening coherence between all policies relevant for development. This is the overarching objective of Africa today’ see www.africa-platform.org.
3. See www.africa-platform.org.
4. This upbeat assessment does not imply that we are blind to either the ‘optimism bias’ in many growth projections (Ho & Mauro, Citation2014) or the repercussions of potential external shocks (e.g. plummeting commodity prices) upon LICs’ growth prospects.
5. According to the Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic (AICD), the infrastructure-financing deficit is more than USD 50 billion per year in the coming decade. Source: AfDB, ‘Infrastructure Finance,’ http://www.afdb.org/en/topics-and-sectors/sectors/private-sector/areas-of-focus/infrastructure-finance/, accessed 31 December 2014. While financing needs estimations may vary depending on the choice of assumptions and methodologies, the scales are immense.
6. Focusing on market-based official finance here does not imply that we overlook other financing instruments such as guarantees in mobilizing private investments.
7. For the theory of the environmental Kuznets curve – the indicators of environmental degradation first rise and then fall with increasing income per capita – see (Grossman & Krueger, Citation1991).
8. DAC donors supplied $62bn of green financing in 2014 according to a new OECD Report (OECD, Citation2015).
9. For instance, the Failed State Index developed by the Fund for Peace, see http://ffp.statesindex.org/.
10. For the list of FY2014, see http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTLICUS/Resources/511777-1269623894864/HarmonizedlistoffragilestatesFY14.pdf.
11. A New Deal for engagement in fragile states, http://www.g7plus.org/new-deal-document/.
12. This section is an excerpt from a co-authored working paper entitled ‘The Renaissance of Public Entrepreneurship: Governing Development Finance in a Transforming World,’ submitted to the High Level Panel on the post-2015 development agenda, May Citation2013.
13. Early contributions to this literature are Johnson (Citation1982), Amsden (Citation1989), Wade (Citation1990), Evans (Citation1995).
14. The Seoul–Busan Highway, a transformative infrastructure investment, was directly inspired by German autobahns and surrounding afforestation.
16. China’s recent announcement of its new market-driven and innovation-based development strategy lays out these features of a learning by doing process and policy settings to make it happen.