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E-discussions: Options for
Market-based Development
The ongoing food crisis in Southern Africa has drawn stark
attention to the failures of development policies over the
last 40 years to create wealth and develop a robust economy
or the markets on which such an economy must depend. What,
however, can be learnt from experience in Southern Africa
and in other parts of the world from successes and failures
in achieving economic growth, poverty reduction and food security?
What particular difficulties and opportunities do the different
Southern African countries face in the aftermath of the 2002
food crisis, in an increasing global economy, and with the
HIV/AIDS pandemic? What policies can different actors (governments,
the private sector, NGOs, civil society) pursue to achieve
growth, poverty reduction and improved food security.
The paper on this theme will address these questions. It
will examine the processes involved in market based economic
development that benefits the poor and promotes food security.
This will lead to consideration of possible sectors with
- high pay-offs from growth
- actual or potential demand to drive growth
- the capacity for demand responsive growth
We will then identify policy and other changes necessary
to (a) stimulate effective demand in these sectors and (b)
enable households and firms to increase activity to respond
to such demand. A critical question concerns the need for
some core economic coordination functions to be provided by
a central stakeholder or set of stakeholders in the early
stages of market development, when markets themselves cannot
fulfill this function, but the actors in these markets need
such coordination to reduce the risks they face in working
with markets. This raises further questions about the role
and capacity of the state and of other stakeholders to deliver
this coordination in a way that promotes pro-poor economic
growth. Similar questions arise with regard to market based
economic development and food security, with the need for
changing roles of the state and other market and non-market
actors in coordinating, distributing and ensuring access to
food when effective markets do not exist but need to develop.
The e conference will stimulate critical discussion of the
practical relevance of this analysis to the different Southern
Africa countries. It will seek to promote debate and information
sharing to plot a way forward that identifies issues on which
there is broad agreement, and clarifies other issues where
reliable information is scarce or where there are different
understandings of problems, opportunities and options.
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