Elections in Africa: Mixed Blessings for Growth and Poverty Alleviation

Free elections and good governance do not secure better economic livelihood

Not all good things go together. Good governance and free elections are often described by western donors as preconditions for growth and poverty alleviation - but recent research tells a different story. Although elections motivate political elites to be responsive to popular demands the impacts on peoples’ livelihood are ambiguous.

Ruling elites seek to initiate and implement polices which they think will help them to win elections and stay in power. Such policies share a number of characteristics:

Initatives aim to benefit the whole country
Impacts are immediate and visible
Results can clearly be identified with the party in power

This DIIS Policy Brief gives examples of important decisions in the productive sectors in Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda. They show that initiatives which do not fit the above criteria do not get much political support.

And if initatives do get political support, their impacts are country specific and may – or may not – promote economic growth and poverty alleviation.

This is a part of the research results by the Elites, Production, Poverty (EPP) programme hosted at DIIS.

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