1 TAKING AFRICA SERIOUSLY: A Case for Enhanced Resource Flow to Facilitate Development and Reduce Poverty Ernest Aryeetey 1 1. INTRODUCTION There are a number of ways in which Africa has been perceived within the context of global development. These have been negative, positive or indifferent. But in the last three decades, most of the discussion of development in Africa throughout the world has been largely negative. Individual countries in the region as well as the entire region have sometimes been described as “basket cases”, both in the popular press and in academic writings. States in Africa have generally been referred to as “predatory”, particularly when compared to the “developmental” states of other regions. Reference to “Banana re- publics” in the popular press was quite common in the 1970s and 1980s. But more fun- damentally, countries in the region dominate the group of “Less Developed Countries” and also the “Least Developed Countries” in view of the widespread nature of poverty. The negative perceptions and descriptions of Africa gained full steam in the 1980s when pictures of starving African children hit the homes of non-Africans, courtesy of interna- tional television. The links between famines, starvation and man-made conflict did a lot to worsen the already poor perceptions of Africa and its ability to solve developmental problems. The perception of weak capacity to solve those problems led not only to Afri- can states receiving humanitarian support from industrialized states, but groups of indi- viduals in Europe and America were mobilized to generate resources to feed and clothe starving African children and households. Obviously, the fact that the problems were caused by a combination of natural disasters and man-made governance disasters did not help in improving the already poor images of Africans and African states. But by far the strongest negative perceptions of Africa have been reinforced by the growing menace of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. It has contributed to the growing cynicism about Africa’s fu- ture in no small way. In that regard, Africa is, in the minds of many people, a doomed place. The positive perceptions of development in Africa have been few and far between. For those few who view Africa with greater optimism, the most positive development in the region in the last two decades has been the greater pluralism in political systems of many countries. The fact that elections have been organized, and these have been contested by more than one party in several countries is seen as a sign of possibly better things to come in Africa. Aside from this, signs that African nations are showing greater interest in the development of functioning markets and greater recognition for private economic agents are viewed with optimism. The number of conflicts appears to have gone down, 1 Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research, University of Ghana and Department of Econom- ics, Swarthmore College (2001-2002).