In the not too distant past — 1980 — one of every six babies born in the West African nation of Liberia died in infancy. Overall life expectancy was a mere 48 years. The great majority of Liberians couldn't read in 1980. Most girls had never attended school.Over the last 30 years, infant mortality has fallen sharply, and life expectancy has jumped to 58 years. Most Liberians today can read. More than 80 percent of girls attend school. Politically, the country is much freer than it was in 1980, the year of a deadly coup.
Economically, however, Liberia has been the world's single worst performer over the last 30 years. Per capita income has fallen an astounding 80 percent, according to official World Bank statistics, which makes the country an extreme example of Africa's long-running economic troubles. While people may debate the causes of those troubles — corrupt and autocratic governments, feckless foreign aid, postcolonial hangover — everyone seems to agree that Africa is a story of failure.
But is it?
In a new book called
Getting Better,Charles Kenny — a British development economist based in Washington — argues that the answer is absolutely not. Life in much of Africa and in most of the impoverished world has improved at an unprecedented clip in recent decades, even if economic growth hasn't.
The biggest success of development,he writes,has not been making people richer but, rather, has been making the things that really matter — things like health and education — cheaper and more widely available.[Emphasis added].
African growth has accelerated over the last decade, and the acceleration followed improvements in education and other basics. It's true that Africa's growth is unimpressive compared with the Asian miracle, but the growth is still the most rapid in Africa's recorded history. Perhaps those investments in Africa's people needed time to produce returns.
For more, see Hopeful Message About the World's Poorest by , March 22, 2011 at NYTimes.com.
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