Reducing poverty in sub-Saharan Africa: the need for participatory governance

Abstract

Traditional approaches to fighting poverty have yielded unsatisfactory results in some African countries, and have been positively damaging in others. Economic growth and social expenditure on the part of both national governments and international donors have been ineffective in some countries, while in others they have exacerbated poverty. The author considers that this is due to the absence of participatory governance. From a theoretical perspective, support for participatory governance stems from Amartya Sen's approach to understanding poverty, which conceptualises poverty as a lack of capabilities, leading to social exclusion. The lack of such governance has led to the failure of traditional approaches in the fight against poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. Finally, the author proposes a tool for assessing the quality of governance, and its application in Cameroon.

Keywords:

• Governance and Public Policy
• Aid
• Sub-Saharan Africa

Acknowledgement

This work was initially presented at the International Regional Conference organised by the Institut International des Sciences Administratives (IISA) and the Ministère de la Fonction Publique et de la Reforme Administrative (MINOPFRA) in Cameroon. The conference took place in Yaounde in July 2002 on the theme of ‘Participatory Governance: the Fight against Poverty and Exclusion’ (‘La gouvernance partagée: la lutte contre la pauvreté et les exclusions’).

The author

Jean Claude Saha teaches in the Department of Economics at the Faculty of Economics and Management at the University of Ngaoundere in Cameroon. He is a research member of the Consortium for Economic Research in Africa (CREA) and the Global Development Network (GDN). He was a finalist in the Japanese Awards for Outstanding Research on Development, at the Seventh Annual Conference of the GDN in St Petersburg, January 2006.