The Africa – Asia Development Divergence

Southeast Asia saw poverty rates declined to near zero in the last half century, while in Tropical Africa they stalled around 45%. How could these two regions with comparable colonial legacies diverge so dramatically?

We are used to the common narrative of development divergence between the global North and South. But there is also a divergence within the global South, between Africa and Southeast Asia. 

The remarkable shift in economic fortune is commonly attributed to two main factors. Firstly, a successful Green Revolution in Asia which has been juxtaposed to structural agricultural development failure in Africa. Secondly, Asian governments have been credited with the adoption of solid macro-economic policies as well as effective agricultural and industrial policies, while African governments have been charged with ‘urban bias’, corruption, ethnic favouritism and fiscal mismanagement. 

But when we ‘Provincialize Europe’ (Dipesh Chakrabarty) in our views on development, we gain better sight on other factors that influence development in the South. In this lecture Ewout Frankema (WUR) proposes a shift in attention to the deeper historical foundations of agricultural productivity growth and structural economic transformation. He argues that the roots of the Africa-Asia divergence can be traced back to at least a full century before the Green Revolution, and that colonialism plays a different role in it than often assumed. 

Ewout Frankema holds the chair of Economic and Environmental History at Wageningen University and is research fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR). His research agenda focuses on a deeper understanding of the long-term comparative economic development of developing regions (Africa, Latin America, Asia) and the historical origins and nature of present-day global inequality. Frankema is also the former editor-in-chief of the Journal of Global History. In his current NWO-funded VICI-project South-South Divergence Frankema and his team compare long-run processes of regional integration in Asia and Africa. Frankema has studied History, Economics and Philosophy at the University of Groningen, where he also obtained his PhD in Economics (2008). He has taught courses in history, economics and development studies at various universities in the Netherlands, Sweden, Benin, Uganda and Uruguay.