Poverty, trade and growth in Sub-Saharan Africa: Introduction to the special issue

The current global environment poses both a threat and an opportunity for Africa. Taking advantage of the openings afforded by trade and investment, while managing the risks and focusing on benefits for the poorest, is the central African challenge in economic policy-making. The policies needed to manage this challenge will be both macro and micro in nature and, especially, the macro–micro linkage will be crucial. The past and current disappointments with macro-level policies are gradually being understood by analysts in terms of insufficient linkage to the micro-level realities of African economy and society. At the same time, there is a realisation that micro-level policies are bound to fail if implemented in an unstable macro- or global-level environment. To address these challenges, a conference was organised in Cape Town, South Africa, on October 13–15, 2004. The conference organisers were Haroon Bhorat of the Development Policy Research Unit (DPRU), University of Cape Town, Stephen Hanival of Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS), Johannesburg, and Ravi Kanbur of Cornell University.1 An international call for papers led to 115 submissions, from which about 50 papers were chosen for presentation at the conference.2 These 50 papers were then put through a selection process including, in the later stages, the normal refereeing procedures of the Journal of African Economies. The eight papers that came through the peer review selection process are published in this special issue. The eight papers in this special issue between them cover poverty, growth and trade. The first four papers focus on growth and its impact on poverty. The second set of four papers covers trade and its impact on efficiency, growth and labour markets. The opening paper constitutes a significant statement by the current Chief Economist for Africa at the World Bank. In his paper, ‘Strategies for Pro-Poor Growth: …