African Development: Making Sense of the Issues and Actors.

Abstract

After almost half-a-century of independence, Africa’s development process has un-dergone tremendous changes. Depending on which development lenses one sees through, these changes can be seen as progressive or disappointing. From the Afro-optimists perspective, these changes have been impressive: growth in the economy, reduction in poverty, increase in the practice of democracy, and plenty of investment opportunities. From the Afro-pessimists perspective, Africa’s development process has been on a disappointing plane: less growth in the economy, poor infrastructure, dic-tatorships, coups d’etats etc. These two different views on African development are in no way contradictory. Rather, they simply present the continent’s diverse and complex development process – that is never linear, and usually uncertain (1-2). If you feel interested in venturing into African development, you cannot afford to ignore consulting the second edition of African Development: Making Sense of the Issues and Actors.