Publication

This paper, citing the renewed international focus on African development as exemplified in both the British Government's Commission for Africa (2005) and the UN's Millennium Project (2004), examines the circumstances under which these respective initiatives were written. The author concludes that both reports suffer from "conceptual and political blind spots," notably due to the lack of leeway afforded to the governments of developing countries in setting their own agendas. Questioning the implementation of previous reports, the author argues that it is likely that only a few of the recommendations will ever be realized, and recommends that international expectations be scaled down accordingly.