Africa Development Indicators 2010

Africa Development Indicators was a primary World Bank collection of development indicators on Africa, compiled from officially-recognized See World Development Indicators for more recent data on Africa. June 11,
Table of contents

East Asia has traditionally been a densely populated region with abundant labour.


  • | Human Development Reports.
  • ADULTERA (Spanish Edition).
  • Asian and African Development Trajectories Revisiting Facts and Figures?
  • Struck.

Sub-Saharan Africa, in contrast, is rather labour scarce and land abundant. This may change over the coming 40 years. Some countries will then turn into relatively labour-abundant economies, with a dramatic impact in terms of development dynamics and changes in potential comparative advantages. Size of the squares proportional to the total population.

World Bank Africa Development Indicators: data on Africa, for Africa

It is no wonder that many Asian countries specialize in labour-intensive industrial activities, such as textile and clothing production, while African countries have focused on extensive agriculture. The value added per agricultural worker tends to be lower in Africa, albeit with some exceptions. In our sample, Botswana has for instance an average value added per agricultural worker that is higher than Vietnam.

Search form

Looking at agricultural productivity, it is interesting to compare the rate of foreign and domestic investments in this sector since the s. Unfortunately, data is not readily available. However, we can look at cereal yield and the consumption of fertilizers per hectare in the two regions. As shown in Figures 3 and 4, we find clear differences between the two regions, confirming that South East Asia is well ahead of sub-Saharan Africa in its transition from extensive to intensive agriculture. While all five Asian countries are in the midst of a steep demographic transition characterized by lower birth rates, this is not the case for the sub-Saharan countries in our sample, with the exception of Botswana and — more recently — Ghana.

Figure 7 shows unabated GDP growth in South East Asia from to , except for Laos which did not experience much growth in the s 3. Figure 8 shows that primary school enrollment is quite high for all countries, except Burkina Faso and — more strikingly perhaps — that university enrollment is extremely low in all six sub-Saharan African countries. Once again, Botswana — the only upper-middle income economy in our sub-Saharan African country sample — stands out as an exception with a per capita consumption of electricity of 1, KwH and an access rate to water as high as 96 percent.

Figure 9 illustrates the concentration of national income in the richest and poorest strata of the population in each country. The high level of income concentration in many sub-Saharan countries may appear as counter-intuitive according to Mkandawire Again, the case of Botswana stands out.

Yet the latter fares better in terms of HDI. Since the HDI also reflects health and education indicators in addition to income per capita, we should expect to see much lower public expenditure in health and education in Nigeria than in Vietnam and Laos.

Top Authors

Malaysia is clearly ahead of the pack with a quarter of public spending set aside for education, but Botswana and Tanzania do not lag too far behind with around 20 percent of public expenditure on education. Likewise, we cannot draw any clear conclusions as far as military spending is concerned. All the countries in the sample remain below 2.

In both regions, public spending accounts for less than 30 percent of the GDP and the average share is 18 percent for Asian countries and This can be explained to some extent by the prevalence of the informal sector in the economy. The Corruption Perception Index CPI is based on opinion polls that provide a subjective measure of perceived corruption the higher the score, the lower corruption.

There is no clear trend emerging from the CPI. Botswana and Malaysia fare best with index values of 5.

Bestselling Series

Corruption Perception Index , Transparcency International, The average value is much higher for Asian countries Most of them are perceived as being relatively unstable and violent, The Philippines and Nigeria receiving the poorest scores Daniel Kaufmann et al.

Figure 15 refers to the quality of budgetary and financial management, which takes into account the extent to which there is a credible budget, a rigorous management system and accurate and timely reporting. The indicators do not show any remarkable differences between the Asian and African countries in our sample. Figure 16 shows that, aside from the upper-middle income countries in our sample, i. Botswana and Malaysia, all other countries recorded poor results.

Our data challenges the widespread assumption that South East Asian economies tend to be systematically more integrated in the world economy and more outward-oriented. In the Philippines, for instance, per capita remittances are about 20 times larger than ODA per capita. Its purpose is rather to present and analyze a range of indicators and data with a view to questioning the widely-held view that East Asian countries are examples of development success contrary to sub-Saharan African countries.

We examined some of the empirical underpinnings of explanations on development in East Asia that stress the importance of the role of the government in the economy and the quality of governance. Our main findings question such explanations because there is no marked difference in public spending among the countries in our sample. There is no stark contrast when looking at indicators dealing with the quality of state institutions or with the rule of law. In addition, data on the share of public expenditure concentrated in the health and education sectors fails to account for the gaps between income per capita and HDI performance, with Nigeria for instance ranking lower than both Vietnam and Laos on the HDI scale, despite enjoying higher income per capita than these two countries.

An analysis of the aggregate value of imports and exports as a percentage of GDP leads us to conclude that there is no systematic gap between the two regions. There is a clearer difference when looking at official development aid, which is generally larger in sub-Saharan Africa, compared with Asian countries which rely more on remittances and foreign direct investment.

As shown by data on cereal yield and fertilizer consumption per hectare, South East Asian countries have made greater progress than sub-Saharan countries in modernizing their agricultural sector, thereby substantially increasing productivity per hectare. This results not only from differences in irrigation and rainfall patterns, but from diverging production factor endowments and the ensuing comparative advantages. Asia is, and will remain, densely populated, with abundant labour and relatively scarce land.

Nevertheless, South East Asian countries are undergoing a rapid demographic transition, which is not yet the case with many African countries. The population of sub-Saharan Africa is expected to grow by more than percent between and Its comparative advantage may evolve over the next 40 years from scarce labour and abundant land toward more labour-intensive activities in the manufacturing sector.

Africa Development Indicators (ADI) | Data Catalog

Industrialization policies followed by Asian countries can provide useful lessons. African countries must be granted the policy space to adopt industrialization policies that are adapted to the reality of the 21 st century globalized economy see Harrison and Rodriguez-Clare, , including effective measures to temporarily protect its infant industry.

Yet social inequality is generally more marked in sub-Saharan Africa, and in particular in Botswana, the income of which is concentrated in the diamond sector. Asian countries fare better with regard to tertiary school enrolment. Botswana is again a case in point since, despite being an upper-middle income country, it has lower rates of university enrolment than Bangladesh, a least-developed country.

The data cannot account for the diversity of development outcomes or for the major differences in development trajectories between South East Asian and sub-Saharan African countries. Development is a far too complex process to be fully captured by quantitative indicators. History, geography, institutions, policies and circumstances all matter a great deal. This review provides interesting insights that contradict in some respects widely-held beliefs. It must be complemented by detailed country case studies to capture the complex dynamics and contextual factors that explain different development outcomes.

Mandatory paid maternity leave days. Maternal mortality ratio deaths per , live births.

Total unemployment rate female to male ratio. Youth unemployment rate female to male ratio. Human Security Homicide rate per , people. Homicide rate per , people. Homeless people due to natural disaster average annual per million people. Prison population per , people. Refugees by country of origin thousands. Suicide rate, female per , people. Suicide rate, male per , people. International inbound tourists thousands.

Mobile phone subscriptions per people. Net migration rate per 1, people. Environmental sustainability Carbon dioxide emissions, per capita tonnes.

Africa Development Indicators 2010: Quiet Corruption

Carbon dioxide emissions, per capita tonnes. Mortality rate attributed to household and ambient air pollution per , population. Mortality rate attributed to unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene services per , population. Red List Index value. Demography Total population millions.

Africa Development Indicators

Old-age 65 and older dependency ratio per people ages Population ages 15—64 millions. Population ages 65 and older millions. Population under age 5 millions. Sex ratio at birth male to female births. Young age dependency ratio per people ages Concentration index exports value.