Center for Global Development : Publications: Back to the Future for African Infrastructure? Why State-Ownership Is No More Promising the Second Time

Center for Global Development : Publications: Back to the Future for African Infrastructure? Why State-Ownership Is No More Promising the Second Time Around - Working Paper 84: "African state-owned enterprises, particularly those in infrastructure, have a long history of poor performance. But moves in the 1990s to rely instead on private-sector participation and ownership have yet to deliver the hoped-for improvements. Is the solution to return to a strategy of improving state firms under public management? John Nellis says no. In this paper, he argues that the prospects for success of Africa’s SOEs are no greater now than before and that private firms still have not been given a real chance."