 Oliver Morris of the University of Nottingham, a good friend of mine, political economy, always described the paradox in the economics literature that we were brilliant at finding reasons and models to explain why politics failed. But we were terrible at finding explanations for why politics might work. And if you think of it, all of our political economy models explain why it doesn't work. But we don't have good models that explains how might it work. So from your discussions, would you have any suggestions for how can anybody contributing to creating the incentives for politicians to do the right thing? Thank you very much. Peter Quote from University of Ghana. Professor Hayati, thank you very much for the thought-provoking presentation. You spoke about the political business cycle and I want to talk back to you. What do you think African governments should do to reverse this political business cycle where we spend three years to mess up and then spend a year to, sorry, a year to mess up and then spend three years to clean up? Thank you. OK, there was here in the middle. Mark, close to your hands. Hi, I'm Mark Dray from DFID. I have a question relating to what challenges increasing complexity poses to democracy and the role of the individual in democracy. And part of Rachel's comments there were that voters don't support the things that are in their best interest. But in order for them to do so, they need to understand what's in their best interest. And earlier we were at a session about the international financial system and there was this idea that after the financial crisis we didn't get further with reforms and I thought partly that's because to push our governments to get further with reforms means the average person on the street understands enough about the international financial system to know what's wrong with it to push for those reforms to fix it. I'm not sure they understand. They don't seem to understand that vaccinations are a good thing. So and I'm just curious to know how how do we square that circle? Thank you for a very interesting and stimulating lecture. A strong theme going through the lecture aside from what you said about democracy was about the need for industrial policy. And I felt that it was not the Democrats fault that people don't have an industrial policy. Countries have been told for decade after decade that it's wrong to have an industrial policy and maybe if now the conversation changed in a very powerful way and everyone would agree that they should have an industrial policy this could be superimposed upon democracy in such a way that all right you have your problems that you've mentioned but at least you also have a structure of planning which would enable you to go go through them with hiccups but at least to go in the right direction. Thank you for a very interesting lecture and two questions. First if we consider the experience of Asia political democracy has been either necessary nor sufficient to create a developmental role for states. Now I think of democracy as a prior but we need to recognize that political democracies are about institutionalized checks and balances but they evolve slowly they create self-correcting mechanisms. Are you perhaps coming to a conclusion too soon that democracy is not conducive to development in Africa or could it be that democracy is in its very early stages it's at best electoral democracy without rights for citizens civil political social so the two questions in a sense are independent it is possible to get industrial policies and governments that are developmental in their roles without democracy we've seen that happen in Asia but it is also possible to think of democracies being the only institution that might serve longer term objectives despite short termism in political cycles. Okay thanks I'll take one more question up here in the front and then allow Ernest to comment reply. Thank you very much Prof when I saw the topic I thought that we were driving into a cul-de-sac because the politics and economics have never been good bedfellows so I knew that the results was going to be what it was however there is I mean despite political economy anyway but but I think I've never been able to resolve this the issue of chicken and egg which comes first is it a democracy that engenders development or it is a development that rather engenders democracy proper democracy so to speak so I don't know what your thoughts are some people think that you need to develop first and democracy will come along others think just go and you know have democracy you know whatever it is and then development will follow you that's my conundrum. Thank you very much Ernest that was quite a rich list of questions. Yeah thank you very much I think we do have here a very rich set of questions and comments Oliver is asking about how we create the right incentive for politicians to do the right thing that's the main reason why we should as a people always have in mind having the right institutions the right institutions provide the checks and balances that Deepak was talking about those right institution so if you have a parliament for example as a result of the new democratic dispensation there are things that we should require the parliament to do which will be of a developmental nature and as a result of the space that we create for the parliament to perform that other politicians who will be forced or obliged to fall in line so long as we leave its everything to the discretion of politicians I'm not sure that's going to happen so that we've got to write out more formally the kinds of things that we expect in the long term we've tried in Ghana to consider at various meetings the efforts to legislate what government can spend or cannot spend providing limits to how far the budget can go is that the kind of thing that we want we don't need to go that far we don't need to legislate everything but it's important to set the right tone having institutions that are we do have a planning commission in Ghana everybody knows in Ghana that the only reason why you get sent to the planning commission is to get you out of the way you know so how do you strengthen the planning commission these are if you have a strong planning commission like what they have in India it can influence the way the politics is done Peter says how do we deal with the political business cycle it's basically the kind of things but I think people have become more and more discerning in many countries are they able to see through what politicians have to and the fact that from time to time we see changes in government as a result of the elections so against it makes me a lot more hopeful a lot more hopeful that in a not too distant future politicians and this is a bit of what Rachel said the kind of Pogbara parties that we see in Africa you find everywhere in the world except that in Africa it does cause more trouble for us like that elsewhere that that's the basic difference Francis wanted to know whether the absence of an industrial policy was the fault of absence of democracy no that's one of the point that I make at all I do suggest that because we are not using the democratic institutions to push for longer term development which in a way is the same to what I said to Oliver I'm not doing that it becomes possible then for political agents to only they pursue the short-term interests the absence of our industrial policy can happen also under an autocratic system but how do we use a democracy to do that how do we bring up so what a democracy should be doing is fostering more debate more discussion of what you go into the industrial policy what kind of sectors are you going to support what kind of witness are we willing to so a democracy makes more discussion are possible than will have been the case in an autocracy deepak I agree with you that democracy is a prior I agree with your position that in Asia we've seen more of a volition of this democratic system that have fostered the developmental state and your own country India is a very good example of that a lot of talks against him that we should forget about the democratic state in Africa no that's not the point at my point is that the democracy is after maturing and in that process of maturing many of them are ignoring things that are in the longer term interest of the people so we've got to fix the way the democracies work I will be the last person to shun democracy I believe in it I believe strongly that democracy can work but it would do so only under certain conditions and those conditions include having the right institutions in place for me a major right institution is a properly functioning parliament a properly functioning judiciary and properly functioning civil society so these are elements of what I consider a good democracy sorry your question is that which comes first this is not there's enough evidence that democracies can support the developmental state and also enough evidence that in countries where the economy is performing well it becomes easier for democracies to function the leaders that are in states where the economy is doing well have little to fear so they allow freedom of speech usually that the kind of they allow people to compete for the right to own things they allow more freedoms to express for expression and so on so that's enough it's not a matter of which one comes first there's if you look at the literature there's a whole ton of studies of this nature it's not the most important thing for me how do you use democracy in Africa that's what I'm looking at how do you use the institutions that come with democracy okay thanks other questions yes in the very back thank you very much my name is wisdom and I'm with you and you wider professor I thank you very much for such an interesting presentation unfortunately I'm not very optimistic like you and this is why the process that deliver political leadership in most of these African countries are inherently corrupt how do people become politicians or win political power they do so by investing they have to campaign and where do they get the money most of the time they get the money from individuals or in you know individuals or businesses that have interest and they sign contrast that become effective as soon as they step into office how will someone who benefit from a weak institutions be ready to clean up these institutions when they get to office that is the reason why most politicians will never improve their institutions when they are in office they will not let the laws work so that people can take them to court for control that is signed before even coming to office and that it becomes even more serious when you have collusion between political parties you have two political dominant political parties in a country like Ghana and what they look out for each other so how do we get from this state to building a cleaning institution unfortunately I don't have the answers and I'm not that optimistic I'm not a political scientist but I have a burning question on this one can you comment on two countries if you're paying Rwanda who became more industrialist before they become more democratic link that to the risk of leadership especially when it comes to choosing the right set of policies long-term policies and the risk of being right type of leader and how can we support risk-taking in this environment thank you thank you very much honest and my name is Joe Nadoom from the African Economic Research Consortium I was listening to Ernest and I was asking myself do we actually know the objective function of our politicians especially when they go to office in fact I was when I was listening to you I realized that since 2002 for example if I take Kenya's example we have had several coerctions every every new erections there are different coerctions no no coeration has taken the government for two times it's only one time and then there's a new coerction so it's quite interesting whether we know the objective function of the politicians and for this let me perhaps start the story from a little bit farther I remember in 2001 Paul Korea started this project of trying to explain civil sorry should I say civil wars in Africa and one of the dominant explanation about civil wars was that presence of rootable resources that is you can root resources and coordinate a rebellion against the government that's what was sustaining civil wars but as we develop this project towards 2002 2003 I think Kenya it was included in that sample and my question was but we haven't had civil war in Kenya now I said no I think if you look at the ethnic violence around election time in 1992-97 and a bit of a bit of that then there is this is a dog that didn't bark so it was included as a as a case study but it was now me and Professor Mungi came in is to explain what was really happening but our strong conclusion just to tie up with the what I was asking before is that actually being in government was like a rootable resource you could use the rules or the laws that exist or even enact new ones to affect resources to yourself this is consistent with what he was really saying you can affect resources to yourself either using the existing law laws or even enacting new ones and maybe that is where we are that is why then if you are now asking why we don't have economic transformation even after repeated elections and all that maybe it is because the objective function actually is totally different maybe I don't know whether you relate that the Kenyan case showed very well in terms of that and that book is published in 2005 and I think the political violence in 2007 somebody called me and asked me do you change your conclusions we've given the political violence that took place in 2007 2008 and I actually argued that it enhances the conclusions maybe that could be something that we can you can pass push some light on my name is by my mother from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in Nigeria yes there has been we know predominantly that the population of Africa is young and there's been a huge focus on Africa's youth as a future an engine for change what would you think their role will be in the whole process of transformation of transformation knowing fully well that a lot of them may not have grown to know democracy or democratic tenants also I would like to get your perspective on the African continental free trade agreements that has been purported now to be a model that would change economies and for a country or my government who was refused in a way to sign it what would you think what would you be a would be your perspective on that things okay the very last question Paul you'll get that one Paul mostly University of Sheffield you mentioned a number of governments including your own which have been very good at democracy but not good at transformation but no one has mentioned the one certainly one African government which has been very good at democracy over a long period and over that same period very good at transmission which is Mauritius what do you think we can learn from them okay thanks very much Ernest so another set of rich questions yeah thank you very much then the first came from wisdom who went who was not so optimistic it didn't see how the politicians could could they clean up the act I understand with them perfectly I don't expect politicians to do it I expect the society to lead the charge I expect so why do I give such a talk I give this kind of talk in the hope that it will resonate with other Africans and they will understand the need for us to have a discussion back home so I expect civil society I expect universities I expect NGOs I expect the everybody to be discussing this unemployment is a big challenge anywhere in Africa whether it's Ethiopia every unemployment is a big challenge and yet very very few African governments discuss how to tackle it what is going to happen they set up a committee that should think about some program that provides jobs for a select group of people everybody knows it's a structural issue how do you engage with it you know so we need to be a lot more confrontational we need to force governments to have a change of mind about these that long-term development cannot be pushed aside but that's basically the message Jerusalem was interested in the Rwandan and the Ethiopian examples wanting to know which one began I'm not sure that either Ethiopia or Rwanda can be described as industrialized certainly they've seen improvements in the performance of the economies and we saw that in Ethiopia first and then we saw the Rwandan acts the for me the most important question is how these positive gains or these gains that have been made can be turned into long-term development based on a new transformation that's what I haven't seen so I've seen good performance in Rwanda I've seen good performance in Ethiopia they are not industrialized yet there are the question in Guguna's question was do you know the objective function of politicians no we don't but for me it doesn't matter it doesn't matter because we should build the institutions that will force them to conform we should build the institutions that if we have a strong civil society it pushes it makes a negligible what the objective function of the politician is because in the new rule of law there's a way of dealing with that there should be a way of dealing with corrupt politicians that's the argument that I make over here the free trade area how likely is it to I think it's a good initiative so long as the African Union is willing to make the kind of commitment to make it work I've seen many initiatives not nearly so much but other coming from also coming from the African Union that have not really functioned properly because governments have not made the commitments and follow through with the commitment that they have made so it all depends on how individual countries so it depends on South Africa it depends on Nigeria so I do hope that Nigeria will soon make up its mind on the on the free trade area Paul's question was about Mauritius why nobody so kind of Mauritius I don't even know why I don't know why we're talking about Mauritius but clearly Mauritius is an outlier in the examples that we've given here I haven't paid much attention to the politics of Mauritius I know more about the economy than I do about the politics but there are a few outliers in Africa I mean I talked about Rwanda being an outlier but swanna another outlier so there are quite a few outliers in Africa but my area of focus is in the countries like Uganda Tanzania Zambia Ghana these are the countries that I'm looking at so I will look at Mauritius as an outlier thank you and we've almost come to the end of this annual lecture I mean I guess I'm sitting here and thinking that maybe it's not democracy per se which is how can I say at fault but maybe the way in which the transition to democracy has been handled in a number of cases and maybe it is about how do we bring strong African leaders to be accountable maybe that's sort of the the thing that's sitting at the core of the messages that we have been discussing at least that's sort of how I understand some of the messages I would like to very much express my sincere thanks to Ernest for being willing to put difficult questions on the table questions that should be addressed questions that should be discussed both here in Helsinki but also across Africa and across the development community I'd like you to join me in an applause for Ernest