How Can we build a prosperous

Africa? What foundations of public

policy do Africans really need?
Cudjoe

Brief Economic history

Pre-colonial- Colonial and
Independent Africa.
Perception of absence of
basic democratic values/
Institutions of prosperity
Trace political, economic
(agricultural, trade exchange by
barter, cowry, free trade,
Mansa Musas gold) judicial
institutionsa basis for Indirect
Rule..

Independence struggle
and replacement of original
African values as western,
divisive, replaced by
authoritarian regimes with
centrally planned thinking..

Results: Ghana and beyond: By 1966,

more than fifty state enterprises set
up were badly managed, weighed
down by inefficient bureaucracies
and run at a huge loss. Ghanas
official external debt reached 184
million in 1963. A year later, it stood
at 349 million. It was clear that
Nkrumahs handling of the economy
was frightening. He had within a
relatively short time plunged Ghana,
a beacon of hope to the rest of Africa
and one of the most prosperous
countries in the tropical world into
bankruptcy. Meredith explains that a
spending spree of 430 million
between 1959 and 1964 left Ghana
scores of loss-making industries and

The Results-Display An interactive

map of the free and unfree world:
https://freedomhouse.org/report/f
reedom-world/freedom-world2015?gclid=CO_Cr9KPy8cCFRK3Gw
odW48Kdg#.Vd_7_yVVikp

What to do?: Copy Habits of Highly

Effective Countries (2008)
Habits of the worlds top 20
performers regarding
the rule of law,
Property rights- De soto
Decentralised decision
making
foreign trade
liberalisation,
business liberalisation,
banking liberalisation and
financial market
liberalisation,

and close the gap regarding:

1. crime;
2. exchange control;
3. time spent with
bureaucracy,
4. centralised bargaining
and
5. excessive spending on
economic regulation and
parastatals. Single spine..
SOURCE: The Free Market
Foundation at R

What more to do: Adopt The Seven

Principles of Sound Public Policy
Free people are not equal,
and equal people are not free.
What belongs to you, you
tend to take care of; what
belongs to no one or everyone
tends to fall into disrepair.
Sound policy requires that
we consider long-run effects and
all people, not simply short-run
effects and a few people.
If you encourage something,
you get more of it; if you
discourage something, you get
less of it.

Nobody spends somebody

else's money as carefully as he
spends his own.
Government has nothing to
give anybody except what it first
takes from somebody, and a
government that's big enough to
give you everything you want is
big enough to take away
everything you've got.

Liberty makes all the difference

in the world.

Further Advice
Singapores Meritocracy Pragmatism,
Honesty..
Brazils Obvious .
Former President Lula Da Silva I found out
something amazing. The success of an elected
official is in the art of doing what is obvious,
it is what everyone knows needs to be done
but some insist on doing differently.

Personal Advice
The only way one can keep liberty's foes at
bay is to give meaning to Hayek's message
summarised by IEA, UK General Director, John
Blundell in Waging the War of Ideas that one
should "Keep liberal thought relevant and
vibrant; recognise the importance of history;
be principled and steadfast; avoid special
interests; eschew politics and instead search
for leverage; recognise the critical role of the
intellectual; and be Utopian and believe in the
power of ideas."