The implicit assumption of the donor community is that Africa is trapped by its poverty, and that aid is necessary if Africa is to escape the trap. In this working paper, CGD president Nancy Birdsall suggests an alternative assumption: that Africa is caught in an institutional trap, wherein a...

Authors assess the dynamics behind the high net resource transfers by donors and creditors to Sub-Saharan African countries. Analyzing the determinants of overall net transfers for a panel of 37 recipient countries in 1978-98, Authors find that country policies mattered little. Donors especially...

Lesotho and other least developed African countries responded impressively to the preferences they were granted under the African Growth and Opportunities Act with a rapid increase in their clothing exports to the US. But this performance has not been accompanied by some of the more dynamic...