Botswana: An African miracle or a case of mistaken identity?

Content Provider	Semantic Scholar
Author	Mogalakwe, Monageng
Copyright Year	2003
Abstract	About a decade ago, the left leaning Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE) published an article by Hoogvelt et al (1992) entitled: 'The World Bank and Africa: A Case of Mistaken Identity'. The article criticised the World Bank's simplistic tendency to lump together African countries as if Africa is one entity. In their critique of the World Bank's simplistic methodology, the authors cite several statements from the bank's reports that posit, inter alia, that Africa is facing deepening crisis because of weak economic growth, low levels of manufacturing, poor export performance, declining industrial output, climbing debt, fal1ing per capita incomes, low levels of investments and savings, weak institutional capacity and deteriorating social indicators, al1 compounded by accelerating population growth. Whilst the World Bank argues that these key variables provide for a commonality that requires a common strategy, Hoogvelt et al used a range of statistical techniques of cluster and discriminant analysis through which they found not ONE, but FOUR distinct types of countries in Africa. Twenty six poorest countries were assigned Cluster One, nine relatively better countries were assigned Cluster Two and three vastly richer countries were assigned Cluster Three, whilst Botswana was assigned Cluster Four, al1 to herself. In other words, Botswana was regarded as a country like no other. It would seem this uniqueness of Botswana derives from the fact that although its GNP per capita was lower than in cluster three, Botswana did far better than any other in variables relating to growth (emphasis in the original). In his introductory chapter to The Political Economy of Democratic Development, Stedman (1993) argued that at a time when Africa's dismal economic performance and political corruption and mismanagement have given rise to a new intellectual movement cal1ed 'Afro-pessimism', Botswana has stood out as an example of economic development, functioning governance, multi-party liberal democracy and as an exception that confounds generalisations. Stedman argued that Botswana's exceptionality prompts analysts to see it as a hopeful model for Africa, 'the
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Language	English
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Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article