Private Enterprise-Led Development in Sub-Saharan Africa provides a novel theoretical and conceptual model to guide research into Africa's economic development. It endorses the view that private enterprise-led growth will help reduce poverty since it strengthens individuals' capacity to care for themselves and their families.

This book explores what is, for many African countries, a new and controversial policy of relying on private actors rather than on government organizations to foster economic growth and development. The contributors explore key issues such as the impact of private enterprise on the development process, small- and medium-sized businesses as a vehicle for growth, and strategies for the expansion of markets and trade. The contributors analyze the historical, social, cultural, and economic obstacles to the development of private enterprise in Africa; the roles of government, women, and business organizations; access to capital and the function of financial institutions; private initiative and agriculture; the use of skilled and semi-skilled labor; and technology transfer. Arguing that private sector forces are crucial to African socioeconomic development, the contributors recommend economic policy reform, establishment of more private enterprises, and encouragement of new domestic and foreign investment.

Presenting a topical analysis of the challenges and achievements of enterprise, Enterprise and Economic Development in Africa examines contributions to economic development on the continent, as well as exploring implications for policy dimensions.

This contributed volume examines development efforts in sub-Saharan Africa and the role privatization and foreign investment can play. The focus is on African and international capital mobility and recent experience in private investment in contemporary African states. While government in Africa continues to have a hand in economic and political matters, private enterprise, private investment, and market forces are becoming increasingly active. The volume reveals these new directions in development practice in Africa and analyzes the difficulties which government, while well-intended, has created in the past. Contributors from the United States and Africa pose questions and examine scenarios for investment in sub-Saharan Africa. And while no single strategy is agreed upon, they provide overwhelming evidence that it has been the failure of prior central policies which has held these nations back, and that hope for the 1990's lies in the unleashing of the private sector. This work will be of interest to scholars and policy-makers in development economics, international trade and finance, and African studies.

Annotation Assesses the progress of private sector development in low-income countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, from 1987 to the present. The book identifies causes of uneven performance and outlines the main elements of a strategy--led by the private sector-- for accelerated and shared growth to reduce poverty. Also available in French: (ISBN 0-8213-3550-2) Stock No. 13550.

Somaliland's Private Sector at a Crossroads is the World Bank Group's first effort to undertake a consultative in-depth analysis of the private and financial sector in Somaliland in at least a generation. The objective of the report is to take stock of what has been achieved since the 1999 constitution was approved, provide an assessment of the current evolution of the private sector, and identify some priority policy options and related actions that would best enable the private sector to generate the growth and jobs sought under the Somaliland National Development Plan. The report is structured around the three key sector 'actors' of the economy: enterprises, financial institutions, and the government. This approach has been taken to facilitate a 'political economy' lens into the analysis. The report explores trends in, opportunities for, and impediments to effective government regulation of the private and financial sector and private sector-led economic growth in Somaliland, a relatively new democracy with limited institutional capacities. Drawing heavily on feedback received through an extensive consultative process that was undertaken in tandem with the analysis, the study concludes with recommendations for policy choices for the continued robust growth of the private sector and the evolution of a sounder financial sector.