The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is an economically diverse region. Despite undertaking economic reforms in many countries, and having considerable success in avoiding crises and achieving macroeconomic stability, the region’s economic performance in the past 30 years has been below potential. This paper takes stock of the region’s relatively weak performance, explores the reasons for this out come, and proposes an agenda for urgent reforms.

The author looks at Africa in the sixties and at the major events which have shaped the destiny of the continent for decades since the end of colonial rule. Most of the countries had won independence by 1968. It was the euphoric and turbulent sixties when African countries were confronted with the harsh realities of nationhood including nation building and state consolidation. They were also years of military coups and assassinations as well as conflicts: the ouster of Kwame Nkrumah who led Ghana to become the first black African country to win independence; the Congo crisis including the secession of Katanga province and the assassination of Patrice Lumumba; the Nigerian civil war triggered by the secession of the Eastern Region which declared independence as the Republic of Biafra; the Zanzibar Revolution followed by the union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar which led to the creation of a new country, Tanzania, which is the only union of independent states ever formed on the continent; and liberation wars in the countries of southern Africa which were under white minority rule. There were many other events which took place across the continent during those years. Almost all the major events which have taken place on the continent through the decades can be traced back to the sixties in one way or another. That was when the foundations of the young African nations were laid. It was also during those years when African governments adopted and implemented policies, including imported -isms which had a profound impact on the continent for decades. It was probably the most important decade in the history of post-colonial Africa.

At the height of the Cold War, Soviet ideologues, policymakers, diplomats, and military officers perceived the countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America as the future reserve of socialism, holding the key to victory over Western forces. The zero-sum nature of East-West global competition induced the United States to try to thwart Soviet ambitions. The result was predictable: the two superpowers engaged in proxy struggles against each other in faraway, little-understood lands, often ending up entangled in protracted and highly destructive local fights that did little to serve their own agendas. Using a wealth of recently declassified sources, this book tells the complex story of Soviet involvement in the Horn of Africa, a narrowly defined geographic entity torn by the rivalry of two large countries (Ethiopia and Somalia), from the beginning of the Cold War until the demise of the Soviet Union. At different points in the twentieth century, this region—arguably one of the poorest in the world—attracted broad international interest and large quantities of advanced weaponry, making it a Cold War flashpoint. The external actors ultimately failed to achieve what they wanted from the local conflicts—a lesson relevant for U.S. policymakers today as they ponder whether to use force abroad in the wake of the unhappy experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan.