The African Development Bank

The African Development Bank: Problems of International Cooperation is an account of events and developments during Kwame Donkoh Fordwor time in the African Development Bank (ADB). The title details the basic issues and problems in international cooperative effort in the field of developmental planning and action. The text first covers the objectives and problems of the ADB, and the proceeds to tackling the role of politics in an institution such as the ADB. Next, the selection details the ideas and objectives of the ADB during the author’s tenure of office. The book will be of great interest to political scientists and economists. Individuals who concerned with international development will also benefit from the text.

This volume in the Multilateral Development Banks series looks at the work of the African Development Bank.

The African continent has long been plagued by economic problems. During the 1970s, with famines and two oil crises, the attention of the international donor community was riveted on Africa. In the 1980s international organizations, both governmental and private, have responded to the African crises. One increasingly visible organization is the African Development Bank, recently heralded by the Wall Street Journal as "the rarest of African species: a success." Founded in 1964 by African governments, its mandate was to solve African problems using African resources. But the devastation of the 1970s forced bank members to reexamine the implications of Africanicity, and in 1982 the bank courted nonregional members. In this first academic study of the ADB, Karen Mingst argues that the bank is a political institution, not the functional, economically neutral organization originally envisioned. Using bank archives and extensive interviews with ADB personnel, contractors, the economic development community, and national government officials, Mingst analyzes the changing political relationships in the ADB in three arenas: intraorganizational politics with effects on the secretariat and on policy issues, political relations with other development organizations, and hegemonic politics among politically and economically powerful state members. Particularly fascinating are her analyses of ADB techniques to influence borrowing states and her discussion of the cooperative and competitive relationship between the ADB and the World Bank. Mingst concludes by comparing the ADB with the other multilateral development banks: the Inter-American Development Bank and the Asian Development Bank. This book will interest all policymakers and scholars concerned with international organizations, economic development, and the entire future of Africa.

This work looks at the policies and projects of the African Development Bank, which, like other multilateral banks, has come under growing criticism from grassroots organisations, environmental groups and others.

The book examines the failures and some of the successes of Africa in its efforts to transform into a society where human security or development in the broadest sense is achieved. It is argued the African continent had, and will continue, to content with disruptions or change on its path to development. Development policy making in this regard, is an art of setting out strategies to build resilience and take advantage of disruptions or change in whatever format: political, economic, health, diplomatic, demographic or even environmental and climatic. The book discusses nine major disruptions in Africa’s socio-economic life and the limits imposed by the rhetoric in development policy: exclusion and social inequality, environmental degradation and climate change, natural resources and poor beneficiation, trade and aid, food insecurity, demography and migration, pandemics and disease burden, conflict and criminality and technology and innovation. The book is intended for intermediate students in African studies, Area Studies, Development Economics, Development Studies, Public Policy and Comparative Politics. In addition will be development practitioners working in developing countries, the UN system, multilateral development banks, donor agencies and regional economic communities in Africa.

Taxation has been seen as the domain of charisma-free accountants, lawyers and number crunchers – an unlikely place to encounter big societal questions about democracy, equity or good governance. Yet it is exactly these issues that pervade conversations about taxation among policymakers, tax collectors, civil society activists, journalists and foreign aid donors in Africa today. Tax has become viewed as central to African development. Written by leading international experts, Taxing Africa offers a cutting-edge analysis on all aspects of the continent's tax regime, displaying the crucial role such arrangements have on attempts to create social justice and push economic advancement. From tax evasion by multinational corporations and African elites to how ordinary people navigate complex webs of 'informal' local taxation, the book examines the potential for reform, and how space might be created for enabling locally-led strategies.