Should weak governance performance in poor countries be discounted because of low income levels?
In recent years the international community has rightly turned its attention to the problems of underdevelopment in Africa. Not only is Africa poorer than other regions in the developing world, it also lags starkly behind other regions in terms of progress towards the Millennium Development Goals. If past trends continue, many countries in Africa will need to double their per capita incomes over the next decade in order to attain the goal of halving poverty by 2005. There is widespread consensus that a combination of substantial aid inflows, together with concerted domestic policy effort, is necessary to meet this challenge. In light of the strong positive effect of governance on development, and in light of its importance for effective aid delivery, it is then a matter of considerable concern that governance performance in Sub-Saharan Africa is on average quite weak. Countries in Africa are poor, and too often they are also poorly governed. 38 out of 46 countries in the region are sho
