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Ms. Catherine McAuliffe
,
Ms. Sweta Chaman Saxena
, and
Mr. Masafumi Yabara
The East African Community (EAC) has been among the fastest growing regions in sub-Saharan Africa in the past decade or so. Nonetheless, the recent growth path will not be enough to achieve middle-income status and substantial poverty reduction by the end of the decade—the ambition of most countries in the region. This paper builds on methodologies established in the growth literature to identify a group of countries that achieved growth accelerations and sustained growth to use as benchmarks to evaluate the prospects, and potential constraints, for EAC countries to translate their recent growth upturn into sustained high growth. We find that EAC countries compare favorably to the group of sustained growth countries—macroeconomic and government stability, favorable business climate, and strong institutions—but important differences remain. EAC countries have a smaller share of exports, lower degree of financial deepening, lower levels of domestic savings, higher reliance on donor aid, and limited physical infrastructure and human capital. Policy choices to address some of these shortcomings could make a difference in whether the EAC follows the path of sustained growth or follows other countries where growth upturns later fizzled out. 
Mr. Ales Bulir
,
Alma Romero-Barrutieta
, and
Jose Daniel Rodríguez-Delgado
The effects of debt relief on incentives to accumulate debt, consume, and invest are an important concern for donors and recipients. Using a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model of a small open economy with a minimum consumption requirement and an endogenous relief probability, we show that excessive debt accumulation is consistent with an anticipation of a future debt relief. Simulations of the calibrated model using 1982-2006 Ugandan data suggest that debt-relief episodes are likely to have only a temporary impact on the level of debt in low-income countries, while being associated with more consumption and less invesment. The long-run debt-to-GDP ratio is estimated to be about twice as high with debt relief than without it.
International Monetary Fund
Like most Sub-Saharan African countries, Kenya’s economic growth appears to have been primarily driven by factor accumulation. The Selected Issues paper and Statistical Appendix for Kenya examines economic developments and policies. During the last two decades, Kenya has been plagued by pervasive problems of internal conflicts, constitutional crises, and corruption scandals. The governance agenda focuses on several reforms, including upgrading the public budget and financial management systems, strengthening the anticorruption institutions, and improving the judicial framework.
International Monetary Fund
This Selected Issues paper assesses the implications of a significant increase in the flow of external financing and grants on real GDP growth in Ethiopia. The paper presents an analysis of the sources of growth during 1991/92–2003/04, as well as an assessment of potential GDP growth. The paper also seeks to assess the historical relationship between foreign aid and the performance of the external sector in Ethiopia to establish whether foreign aid inflows have had an adverse effect on the tradable goods sector in the past.