THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF DIVERSIFICATION AND RESOURCE DEPENDENCE DURING COMMODITY PRICE DOWNTURNS

From the early 2000s to 2014, with only a brief slowdown in late 2008 and 2009, African economies benefited from their most enabling conjuncture since the early 1970s. The vast majority grew significantly, while a handful of African states posted double-digit growth rates.

The purpose of this part of the programme is to study the twin challenges posed to post-boom African states of managing resource dependence while seeking to diversify their economies. What are the macro-impacts of the downturn and the public policies aimed at stemming them? What explains variance in the manner in which different governments have dealt with this conjuncture? What are the internal and external institutions and key (on occasion, informal) constituencies at the forefront of decision-making? And what does this mean for future trajectories?

Lead researchers

David Pratten (African Studies) and Chris Adam (ODID)

Research team

Wale Adebanwi (African Studies), Doug Gollin (ODID), Ricardo Soares de Oliveira (DPIR), Gerhard Toews (Economics)