That's the title of a recent editorial in the Financial Times. The editorial recounts the recent data debates. Most importantly, the FT editorial highlights how important it is to debate data openly and freely and this is in African countries' interest . Referring to...
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Category: Africa Rising
New Afrobarometer results further question the ‘Africa rising’ narrative
In Poor Numbers I suggested that many African economies are not growing as fast as the official statistics will have us think, and that we know too little to judge what is happening actually to living standards and poverty in the aggregate. As John...
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African Economic Data and Investors
The Financial Times focus on what the recent Africa data debates means for investors. The Africa report maps that different statistical offices have reacted to the debates in quite different ways. In the blog Bottom Up Thinking the author notes that the access to...
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The great African data debate
Not my words, but that's what UNU-Wider calls it. As I written before I think that it is true that some countries have better data that are available through household surveys. BUT: not all of these are comparable, and availability is NOT random, hence...
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Inclusive Growth in Africa: Measurement, Causes and Consequences
That was the name of the conference in Helsinki, organized by UNU-WIDER. All in all an underwhelming experience. I understand that we are a bit excited about growth in Africa, but maybe the title of the conference should have been: Inclusive growth in Africa?...
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Africa: Measuring success @ Oxford Analytica Confernence 18-20 September
That's the title of the panel I am invited to speak on at a conference organized by Oxford Analytica, 18-20 September. I am on a panel with Diana Layfield, a Chief Executive Officer of Standard Chartered Africa, Michael Lalor from Ernst and Young (and...
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Pictures from the book launch in Vancouver
“African Economic Development: Measuring Success and Failure”, drug an international conference was held recently at Simon Fraser University, pharmacy Vancouver, hospital Canada. On Friday April 19 I launched the book, you can see more pictures from the launch here. Over fifty leading scholars, data...
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Poor Numbers in the ‘Africa Rising’ debate in Foreign Policy
FOREIGN POLICY article - January 28, 2013. "We Have No Idea if Africa Is Rising" Recent FP contributors have said that Africa is and is not rising. They're both wrong because they don't have the numbers to back it up. Read the Article