africa

Africa at a Fork in the Road: Taking Off or Disappointment Once Again?
to the impact of subsidies, and Ethiopia maintain favorable rankings even after the
adjustment for inequality.
6.5 Conclusion
This discussion of inclusive growth in Africa has emphasized that Africa’s impressive
growth of the last decade has not created enough jobs and has not reduced
poverty fast enough. The growth has not been inclusive. It has been explained
largely by a strong commodity price trend, while domestic demand factors have
been relatively less strong.
We have presented the factors that make up inclusive growth: economic, social,
spatial, and political/institutional inclusion. Finally, we have presented an inclusive
growth index for Africa, which allows us to compare performance across countries,
and an approach for dealing with inequality considerations.
The policy implication is that countries and development partners need to broaden
their classification of countries beyond the mere income approach, and take into
account the other factors discussed above. This also has implications for policies
governing allocation of donor resources and general graduation of countries.
Resource allocation needs to take the degree of the inclusive nature of the growth
into account.
A number of questions remain for further research:
• Relative importance of inclusive growth factors;
• Comparison of indices and measures that are aimed at capturing inclusive growth;
• Policies and strategies for achieving inclusive growth;
• Customizing inclusive growth indicators to country specifics.
References
African Development Bank Group (AfDB), 2011. The Tunis Consensus. Tunis: AfDB.
______, 2012. Briefing Notes for ADB’s Long-Term Strategy. Tunis: AfDB.
______, 2013a. The African Inclusive Growth Index. April. Tunis: AfDB.
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