1992, and poverty (according to a World Bank estimated poverty line) fell
from 270 million people in the late 1970s to 100 million in the late 1980s; and
mortality rates improved for females and children of both sexes (Nolan, 1995;
Naughton, 2007). Declining standards of nutrition (see Chapter 1) do not seem
to have had an adverse impact on mortality rates in China.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, the long-term story since around 1960 is of slow or
negative growth. The enduring problem in this region has not been starting but
rather sustaining growth. Between 1965 and 1985 average GDP growth per
capita was minus 1 per cent, meaning that countries with two-thirds of the
population of Africa had lower per capita income in 1985 than in the mid-
1970s. Between 1965 and 1980 agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa grew by 2
per cent per annum, less than the rate of population growth. As well as long-
term stagnation there are also interesting patterns of instability and volatility
in growth. Ten African countries had growth of more than 6 per cent per
annum between 1967 and 1980. These included some mineral-rich economies
(Gabon,Botswana,Congo and Nigeria) and some without minerals (Kenya
and Côte d’Ivoire) (Mkandawire, 2001). Many developing countries (in East
Asia,Latin America,Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East) shared good
growth performances in the 1960s and 1970s but only a small minority
managed to sustain growth after the mid and late 1970s, and most of those
were in East Asia (Rodrik, 1999). Economic performance in Sub-Saharan
Africa has more recently improved markedly. Average GDP per capita growth
(PPP) increased from –0.07 per cent between 1975 and 1994 to 1.88 per cent
between 1995 and 2005. Africa’s top performers are again comparing
fa vourably with fast-growing countries in other regions. Arbache and Page
(2009) ask how fragile this growth revival is. They find that resource-rich
countries are more likely to experience growth accelerations than non-
resource-rich countries, or as they put it, ‘geology has trumped geography’
(2009:3). Oil exporters have grown at 4.5 per cent per annum since 1995,
double the region’s growth rate. They find little evidence that better policies
(changes in investment, trade, budget deficits, inflation or real exchange
rates) or institutions (measures of institutions published by the World Bank)
underpin the increased frequency of growth accelerations. Private investment,
for example, only increased from 11.5 to 12.5 per cent of GDP in resource-
rich countries. The dependence of this growth on raw material prices rather
than policy change means that the growth revival remains ‘fragile’ to any
future downturn in those prices (Arbache and Page, 2009). The case of
Zambia, whose economic fortunes have long been tied to world copper prices,
is discussed in Box 2.1.
The African equivalents of the ‘Tiger Economies’ of East Asia are those that
show a sustained (six-year) increase in growth rates above the country’s long-
run (1975 to 2005) average (Arbache and Page, 2008). Eight countries, termed
‘Leopards’, fit this criterion (Angola, Botswana, Cape Verde, Chad,
Mozambique, Sudan and Tanzania). Surprisingly, countries that have been
widely praised as good performers, such as Ghana, Senegal, Rwanda and
Growth in the Modern World Economy since 1950 47