The Role of the Private Sector in the Development of Sub-Sahara Africa: Why Governance Matters

In contemporary global society, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) remains one of the least developed regions of the world due to a lack of sufficient infrastructure developments that can advance socioeconomic development in the region. Using three political economy frameworks: the five lenses framework, the problem-driven framework and Levy’s good-fit alternative framework, this paper investigates the extent to which contrasting qualities of governance undermine or support the completion of infrastructure development initiatives through public and private collaborations developed via public-private partnerships (PPPs). To interrogate any correlation, this study comprises three papers. The first contrasts governance and infrastructure developments using PPPs in Nigeria’s power and telecommunication sectors. The second presents findings on the views of private-sector financial agents using Ecobank executives to highlight governance factors that inform their decision-making. The final paper highlights the quality of governance observed in Ivory Coast’s power sector that has facilitated positive outcomes for decades. Informed by analysis, this paper determines that governance practices significantly affect PPP outcomes in SSA.

 

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