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ABSTRACT
This paper asks how comprehensive and holistic is the World Bank’s current development model, also known as the Comprehensive Development Framework (CDF), in Africa? By comprehensive and holistic, I am referring to whether the framework has the ability to capture the sources of all impediments to progress in different African contexts and offer corresponding solutions. I argue that the CDF is myopic and hackneyed. Not only does the World Bank employ the same neoliberal logic that informed structural adjustments, but it also continues to miss crucial non-material facets of development in the African countries it purports to serve. I make this argument by comparing the CDF/Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) model in Kenya to the under-utilised development philosophy of Wangari Maathai. This comparison intimates that an alternative to the CDF is not only possible, but also necessary. Maathai demonstrates how any holistic development approach for postcolonial Africa must grapple with both international and domestic factors that historically and currently exacerbate the chrysalis of political, economic, and social progress. A comprehensive approach must also deal with the particulars of each context while not eliding the uniform histories of exploitation and purposive underdevelopment that many African countries share.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Jane Gordon, Noah Theriault, Meghan Wilson and Laurian Bowles for their comments on drafts of this paper. The paper greatly benefitted from the IPS Postdocs workshop with Giorleny Altamirano Rayo, John Chin and Dov Levin at Carnegie Mellon University.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 .Keita, Philosophy and African Development, 25.
2 .Wolfensohn and Fischer, “Comprehensive Development Framework”; Wolfensohn, Voice for the World’s Poor.
3 .Goldman, Imperial Nature; Ferguson, Global Shadows.
4 .Taylor, “Dependency Redux”; Akolgo, “Afro-Euphoria.”
5 .Goldman, Imperial Nature; Rodrik, One Economics, Many Recipes; Ferguson, Global Shadows; M. Smith, Beyond the “African Tragedy”; Engler, “Abandoning the World Bank.”
6 .Mansuri and World Bank, Localizing Development; Miller-Adams, World Bank: New Agendas; Phillips, Reforming the World Bank.
7 .Noël and Thérien, Left and Right in Global Politics; Joshi and O’Dell, “Global Governance and Development Ideology.”
8 .Rodrik, “Goodbye Washington Consensus”; Gereffi, “Global Value Chains”; Werner, Bair, and Fernández, “Linking Up to Development?”
9 .Rodrik, “Goodbye Washington Consensus.”
10 .Phillips, Reforming the World Bank; Miller-Adams, World Bank: New Agendas.
11 .Pender, “From ‘Structural Adjustment’ to ‘Comprehensive Development Framework.’”
12 .Owusu, “Pragmatism and the Gradual Shift.”
13 .Owusu, “Discourse on Development from Dependency to Neoliberalism”; Ferguson, Global Shadows; Pender, “From ‘Structural Adjustment’ to ‘Comprehensive Development Framework.’”
14 .Ziai, “Post-Development”; N. Andrews and Bawa, “A Post-Development Hoax?”; Alemazung, “Post-Colonial Colonialism.”
15 .Esteva, “Development”; Ziai, “Post-Development.”
16 .Matthews, “Colonised Minds?”
17 .Ziai, “Post-Development”; Matthews, “Colonised Minds?”
18 .Wolfensohn and Fischer, “Comprehensive Development Framework”; Wolfensohn, The Other Crisis.
19 .Wolfensohn and Fischer, “Comprehensive Development Framework”; Wolfensohn, Voice for the World’s Poor; Wolfensohn, The Other Crisis.
20 .World Bank, Entering the 21st Century.
21 .Wolfensohn and Fischer, “Comprehensive Development Framework.”
22 .Cheru, “Building and Supporting PRSPs in Africa”; Booth, Fighting Poverty in Africa.
23 .IMF, “Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers – Progress in Implementation.”
24 .Ibid.
25 .Wolfensohn and Fischer, “Comprehensive Development Framework.”
26 .IMF, “Factsheet – Debt Relief.”
27 .Fukuda-Parr, “Reducing Inequality – The Missing MDG”; Booth, Fighting Poverty in Africa.
28 .Hanmer et al., “Kenya.”
29 .Wolfensohn and Fischer, “Comprehensive Development Framework.”
30 .Maathai, Unbowed: A Memoir; Maathai, “An African Future”; Maathai, “Bottlenecks to Development in Africa”; Maathai, “Rise Up and Walk!”
31 .Fairclough, “Critical Discourse Analysis.”
32 .M. Andrews, The Limits of Institutional Reform in Development.
33 .Quoted in Mbom, “World Bank – Structural Adjustment Programmes.”
34 .Ibid.
35 .Ngugi, “World Bank Warns Kenya.”
36 .Ibid.
37 .Maathai, “Bottlenecks to Development in Africa.”
38 .Ibid.
39 .Ibid.
40 .Ibid.
41 .Ngugi, “World Bank Warns Kenya.”
42 .Government of Kenya, Economic Reforms for 1996–1998.
43 .Galtung, “A Structural Theory of Imperialism.”
44 .Zutt, “Corruption in Kenya.”
45 .Ibid.
46 .Ibid.
47 .World Bank, “Private Sector Credit Growth Is Key.”
48 .Maathai, “Bottlenecks to Development in Africa.”
49 .Ibid.
50 .D. J. Smith, “Corruption, NGOs, and Development in Nigeria”; Davis, “Planet of Slums.”
51 .Maathai, “Bottlenecks to Development in Africa.”
52 .Ibid.
53 .Cheru, “Building and Supporting PRSPs in Africa.”
54 .Ministry of State for Planning, National Development and Vision 2030, First Medium Term Plan (2008–2012): Kenya Vision 2030, 53.
55 .Government of Kenya, “Fourth Development Partnership Forum.”
56 .Ibid.
57 .Maathai, “An African Future.”
58 .Ibid.
59 .Ibid.
60 .Maathai, “Bottlenecks to Development in Africa.”
61 .Government of Kenya, Kenya Vision 2030, 5.
62 .Government of Kenya, Economic Reforms for 1996–1998, 6.
63 .Ibid.
64 .World Bank, Governance for Improved Service Delivery.
65 .Maathai, The Challenge for Africa; Maathai, “An African Future”; Maathai, “Bottlenecks to Development in Africa.”
66 .Maathai, “Bottlenecks to Development in Africa.”
67 .Maathai, “An African Future.”
68 .Maathai, “Bottlenecks to Development in Africa.”
69 .Ibid.
70 .Food Security Portal, Food Security Report (Prepared by Kenya Agricultural Research Institute).
71 .Maathai, Unbowed: A Memoir, 123.
72 .Ibid.
73 .Morvaridi, “Does Sub-Saharan Africa Need Capitalist Philanthropy.”
74 .Hall, Scoones, and Tsikata, “Plantations, Outgrowers and Commercial Farming.”
75 .Maathai, Unbowed: A Memoir, 123.
76 .Ministry of State for Planning, National Development and Vision 2030, First Medium Term Plan (2008–2012): Kenya Vision 2030: A Globally Competitive and Prosperous Kenya, 5.
77 .World Bank, Governance for Improved Service Delivery.
78 .Ministry of State for Planning, National Development and Vision 2030, First Medium Term Plan (2008–2012): Kenya Vision 2030: A Globally Competitive and Prosperous Kenya, 2.
79 .World Bank, Governance for Improved Service Delivery.
80 .Sissako, Bamako.
81 .Radcliffe, “Development for a Postneoliberal Era?”; Suárez-Krabbe, Race, Rights, and Rebels; Muvangua and Cornell, UBuntu and the Law.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
T. D. Harper-Shipman
T. D. Harper-Shipman is an assistant professor of Africana studies at Davidson College. Her research focuses on political economy, development, human rights and gender in Africa. She holds a PhD in political science.