Developing an African Growth Plan

The author contends that the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) act as a 'political camouflage' that prioritizes alleviating the visible signs of poverty—such as hunger and disease—over addressing the structural causes of African underdevelopment. While acknowledging the MDGs' role in improving the global debate on aid effectiveness, the paper argues that focusing on gross enrolment in primary education and basic health outcomes ignores the need for technical skills, commercial infrastructure, and a competitive business environment. To counter this, the author proposes a comprehensive 'African Millennium Growth Plan' centered on eight pillars: strengthening commercial infrastructure, investing in rural economies, enhancing technical skills and research, increasing domestic lending and savings, raising domestic revenue, promoting the rule of law, removing bureaucratic obstacles, and fighting corruption.

• The UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are criticized for focusing on the symptoms of poverty—such as low incomes, hunger, and disease—rather than the underlying causes of underdevelopment, which the author argues are uncompetitive industries and high costs.
• The author argues that the MDGs create a 'smokescreen' or 'political camouflage' that allows aid agencies and politicians to avoid addressing why aid often fails to deliver long-term results or why projects are poorly conceived.
• The focus on universal primary education under the MDGs is viewed as potentially counterproductive if it diverts limited resources away from secondary, vocational, and tertiary education, which provide the technical skills (e.g., electricians, carpenters) that are in short supply in Africa.
• The document highlights severe bureaucratic inefficiencies in sub-Saharan Africa, noting that according to a 2005 World Bank survey, it takes an average of 433 days and 35.4 procedures to enforce a contract, compared to significantly lower figures in China and OECD countries.
• The author proposes a growth-oriented agenda that includes specific infrastructure targets, such as doubling port capacity and speed of customs clearances by 2010 and removing all electricity blackouts and load sharing within five years.
• To improve financial stability and investment, the author suggests cutting interest rates to 15% or less within five years and redirecting national pension savings—estimated at $127 billion across 14 African nations—back into the continent.
• The paper advocates for a shift toward contract farming models, citing successful examples like South African Breweries in Uganda, Clark Cotton in Zambia, and Blue Skies in Ghana, to increase rural incomes and export competitiveness.

APA

Herbert, R. (2005). Developing an African Growth Plan. South African Institute of International Affairs. https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Herbert_Yearbook_2005.pdf

Chicago

Herbert, Ross. Developing an African Growth Plan. South African Institute of International Affairs, 2005. https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Herbert_Yearbook_2005.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Herbert |first1=Ross |title=Developing an African Growth Plan |publisher=South African Institute of International Affairs |date=2005 |url=https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Herbert_Yearbook_2005.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{herbert2005developing, author = {Herbert, Ross}, title = {{Developing an African Growth Plan}}, institution = {South African Institute of International Affairs}, year = {2005}, url = {https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Herbert_Yearbook_2005.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }