GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT STUDIES
GLOBAL
DEVELOPMENT STUDIES
Copyright © 2015 International Development Options
All Rights Reserved
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Volume Seven Winter 2014-Spring 2015 Numbers 3-4.
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THE STATE, INFRASTRUCTURE AND HUMAN CAPACITY AS INSTRUMENTS FOR PROMOTING
SOCIOECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN CONTEMPORARY AFRICA
Peter Arthur
Department of Political Science, Dalhousie University
1459 Oxford Street
P. O. BOX 15000, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3H 4R2.
Email Address: parthur@dal.ca
Published Online: March 15, 2017
ABSTRACT
Since independence, African governments have adopted numerous policy initiatives to promote socioeconomic development, employment generation and poverty alleviation. Although some gains have been realized, the consensus is that compared to other developing regions Africa still lags behind in the development process and that the stated goals for socioeconomic development have hardly been achieved. This article therefore examines the appropriate policy choices to be formulated and implemented by African countries to facilitate social and economic transformation. In particular, it focuses on the role of the state and the importance of promoting human capacity, as well as addressing the infrastructure deficit as an important precondition for socioeconomic transformation in African countries.