The Political Economy of Underdevelopment in Sub-Saharan Africa

This book explores the challenges of economic growth and development confronting some Sub-Saharan African countries and focuses on analysing the progression of underdevelopment in Sierra Leone, presenting the internal frictions and external threats that can stifle its economic growth and sustainable development.

This book provides a unique combination of history, politics, and economics to rationalize the progression of underdevelopment in Sierra Leone, and the challenges of economic growth and development confronting some Sub-Saharan African countries. It concisely presents the internal frictions that are most responsible for the underdevelopment of Sierra Leonean since 1961, while also benchmarking the performance of the country with some countries in the subregion, Europe, the US, Latin America, and Asia. It highlights the external threats that are highly capable of stifling the economic growth and sustainable development of the country, including sovereign debt, the paucity of human capital, the use of natural resources, and external shocks. The central concepts of analysis include the premise for underdevelopment, contexts for business strategies and rivalry in an underdeveloped economy, economic growth, productivity, sustainable development, international trade, and threats to macroeconomic stability in the form of volatile commodity prices, loss of competitiveness, inaccessible foreign markets, deficient healthcare infrastructure, the cost of unsustainable sovereign debt, and the viability of long-term investments. The book has been intentionally developed for all those who are strongly interested in the political economy of Sub-Saharan Africa (with particular emphasis on Sierra Leone), empirical work on economic growth and development, academic instruction on international political economy, international organizations, and policymakers.