CSPS Seminar on "Resource Wealth and Human Development in African Democracies: Social Welfare Funding in Ghana and Zambia"

Most sub-Saharan African countries are endowed with natural resources such as minerals, natural gas and petroleum but often lag behind other continents in human development outcomes, remaining dependent on varying degrees of foreign aid to finance social programmes. There is some debate that resource-rich countries that are also democracies are more likely to produce political institutions that promote linkages between resource revenues and human development outcomes.  However, the evidence interrogating these linkages on the African continent has not been explored fully. Using Ghana and Zambia as case studies, this presentation addresses two issues. First, it considers whether there are any institutional mechanisms that promote direct linkages between resource revenues and social welfare spending, including programmes such as Ghana’s Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) and Zambia’s Social Cash Transfer (SCT). Second, it interrogates the differences and similarities between the two country cases and considers explanations for variation.