As many interpretations of the Washington
Consensus exist as there are regions in the world.
For Africa, the panoply of reforms subsumed
under the term has been useful as a guide to economic
policymaking—with the main focus on fiscal discipline
and privatization—even though it has proved difficult
for most African countries to pursue all of them. Few countries
anywhere have applied the reforms of the Washington
Consensus completely, not least because some of them are
culturally and historically sensitive. A larger difficulty, however,
is that the reform agenda only partially addresses the
growth constraints faced by many developing countries.
Macroeconomic stabilization is critical for growth, but it is
not clear that privatization is. Moreover, privatization and
deregulation simply do not apply to African countries in the
same way that they may in Latin American countries.
Nevertheless, most African states have made strong
progress with many of the reforms, which helps explain, in
part, the continent’s improved economic performance in
recent years. Economic growth in Africa is expected to average
3.1 percent this year and 4.2 percent next year—more
than twice the average in 1984–93 and marginally higher
than the average for all developing countries. Macroeconomic
stability is being consolidated, with average consumer
price inflation at 9.7 percent in 2002, down from
13.2 percent in 2001 and 54.6 percent in 1994. Underpinning
the better inflation picture are lower fiscal deficits, which
have declined from an average 5.2 percent of GDP in 1994 to
2.1 percent in 2001.
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