For three decades, Nigeria missed its opportunities to use oil wealth for economic transformation. Since 2003, there have been remarkable efforts to reform economic policies across a wide range. The challenge is enormous and the process of reform will need to continue for many years. The design of policy reform must rest on a firm basis of evidence and analysis. This book demonstrates that there is already sufficient evidence on the Nigerian economy and society to inform many policy issues. Under the auspices of the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Centre for the Study of African Economies, Oxford University, Nigerian and international scholars have convened to deploy this evidence to reveal the current problems and policy options that a democratic Nigeria will need to debate and resolve. It presents an agenda of reform as unfinished business.

The period from 1960 to 2000 was one of remarkable growth and transformation in the world economy. Why did most of Sub-Saharan Africa fail to develop over this period? Why did a few small African economies succeed spectacularly? The Political Economy of Economic Growth in Africa, 1960 2000 is by far the most ambitious and comprehensive assessment of Africa's post-independence economic performance to date. Volume 1 examines the impact of resource wealth and geographical remoteness on Africa's growth and develops a new dataset of governance regimes covering all of Sub-Saharan Africa. Separate chapters analyze the dominant patterns of governance observed over the period and their impact on growth, the ideological formation of the political elite, the roots of political violence and reform, and the lessons of the 1960 2000 period for contemporary growth strategy.

This study argues that the market fundamentalist approach to economics, promoted by most of the industrialised countries and the Bretton Woods institutions, actually increases the vulnerabilities of small and poor countries, exposing them to financial crises. It argues that claims that global growth and equity would best be served through deeper financial integration are founded on weak theoretical and empirical premises. It shows how economic liberalisation in poor countries with weak and underdeveloped markets and institutions, with no welfare support systems, brings few benefits, and simply exacerbates poverty. The co- authors fear the impacts may be permanent, as current trends indicate deep poverty will be confined within defined geographical boundaries, leading to a ever-widening gap between rich and poor.

The emerging African prespective on the complex issue of structural adjustment is here analysed. It answers the major challenge for Africans themselves to lead the reform process which has been dominated by external ideas and models. The editors, two of Africa's top scholars, provide a succinct yet comprehensive synthesis of the adjustment debate from a truly African perspective, supported by thirty individual studies, twenty-five of which are from top economists and scholars from every corner of Africa. For decades now, many African countries have implemented the structural adjustment programs of the Bretton Woods Institution. And yet extreme poverty and underdevelopment continue to plague what is becoming the world's forgotten continent. Responding to this need for a new approach from within, the editors articulate a path for the future, underscoring the need to be sensitive to each other's unique history and current condition. They argue for a broader policy agenda and for a much more active role for the state within what is largely a market economy.