The Economist: Is Africa Recovering?

A recent report from the World Bank has some interesting findings related to the African continent…

Politicians, donors and businesspeople with African investments increasingly claim that conditions on the ground are improving: economic policies are improving, economies are growing faster, the region is more politically stable and governance is getting better. Some of these assertions are broadly or partially correct, but the World Bank’s 2008 report on governance indicators—Governance Matters—suggests that, on governance at least, such optimism should be tempered, since African aggregate indicators worsened some 7.6% between 1996, when the governance indicators were first compiled, and 2000. There has been a modest improvement since then, but the total index is still 5% lower now than in 1996.