West Africa Day

West Africa Day - 15 November 2005
Venue: Poortgebouw, Rijnsburgerweg 10, Leiden (5 minutes from Leiden CS)
Directions to the Poortgebouw

Over the last decade, the term ‘privatisation’ has been en vogue in the North as well as the South in policy guidelines of governments and development agencies. Propagated as the panacea against the evils of inefficient government bureaucracies and poor levels of public service delivery by neo-liberal economies, however it has become a highly controversial issue. Leftist thinkers have condemned the privatisation of former state-owned services as a sell-out of public goods and as a final victory of market capitalism that tends to make the rich even more affluent and the poor more destitute. Privatisation can take many forms and may relate to the transformation of state-owned services into commercial companies and to the rise of an economy dominated by private enterprise. Its relationship with development policies has fueled even more (political) controversy.

Unfortunately, this ideological debate is not conducive to the ways in which an assessment can be made of current privatisation policies and efforts, and its effects in societies that have been subjected to it in the past years. Particularly in the developmental relationship with a host of West-African countries has privatisation played a crucial role in pursuing ‘good governance’ and ‘aid-effectiveness’. During the first West Africa day of the Development Policy Review Network (DPRN), privatisation is on the agenda with the purpose of exploring and debating its merits and its failures for this specific region of Africa, and how policy makers, NGOs and researchers may fulfill complementary roles in fueling successful economic development towards the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals.