ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Africa's relatively poor long-term macroeconomic performance. It reviews existing evidence and literature to filter out main wisdom to explain the links between macroeconomic performance in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and its determinants. The chapter explains growth, investment, savings and export supply in SSA countries over 1970-1994. It also explains links between macroeconomic performance in SSA and their determinants by using stellar performance of East Asia for comparison. The chapter shows the heavy reliance of public investment on external financing. It discusses a preliminary framework for analysing mechanism through which the five categories of variables affect growth, exports, savings and private investments. The chapter argues that the task facing SSA countries is determining how to achieve high growth, high private investment, high savings ratios and high export performance, and how to sustain these performances. It also argues that investment, in the absence of deteriorating investment productivity, should form the basis for future growth and the challenge for SSA.
