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Economist says Africa is heading towards bright economic future
By Julio Godoy
Updated Sep 7, 2010 - 10:48:18 AM
PARIS (IPS/GIN) - Africa is heading towards a bright economic future, according to a new book co-authored by the former director of the French state agency for economic cooperation and released recently in Paris.
In the book “Le temps de l'Afrique” (“The African Age”), Jean-Michel Severino, until last April director of the French state agency for economic cooperation, and his co-author Olivier Ray maintain that sub-Saharan Africa has started the new millennium under far better economic and social circumstances than generally assumed.
The book has received mixed reviews with some doubting its optimism.
To support their thesis that “Africa is rushing towards affluence,” as Severino put it in an interview, the authors use the most recent economic and social data, showing rapid economic growth, high investment and sinking poverty.
“The vision that we in Europe have of Africa—of a continent frozen in poverty and disease—is simply wrong,” Severino declared. “On the contrary, today's sub-Saharan Africa is a region of high economic growth, with numerous business opportunities. Sub-Saharan Africa is now a high speed train rushing towards affluence and prosperity.”
Severino recalled that since the beginning of the century, the sub-Saharan African economy “has grown by a yearly average rate of 5.5 percent, against only 1.35 percent in the euro zone.”
Severino quoted a recent study by the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), which shows that African poverty “is falling rapidly.”
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tags: africa, development, economics, political economy, post-colonial
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