economically many argue her harsh tenure as PM makes perfect sense, socially many would argue that she is the creator of many of the deep social divisions within modern society. Both views seem rather exaggerated. It may be argued that economic welfare does not lead to happiness (happiness being a popular choice as to what makes for a good government despite being rather elusive to measure). Bhutan, one of the poorest nations in the world, was ranked number one in a world happiness survey. Therefore, to say economic welfare is the stem of social welfare doesn't seem appropriate, nor a strong economy a 'good' government. So, to answer my first question, should economists rule the world? No is the answer I have come to believe. Should economists help run the world? Definitely.
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K HALIL GBLA
The roles of micro and macro finance in the development of Africa
“We wouldn’t be investing as much in the rest of Africa if we didn’t believe. Africa will be the success story in the next decades…Africa is on the move and it is moving forward” - Julian Roberts, Group Chief Executive, Old Mutual As of recent decades, Africa as a continent has received an ample amount of aid from the western world. Backed with good intentions, microfinance has provided a base for small businesses and entrepreneurs scattered across Africa to increase competition and therefore, ideally, stimulate economic growth. However, this has not worked to the extent to make a true difference and in some cases caused a contraction in economic activity. After $1 trillion in African development related aid in the last 60 years, real per capita income is lower than it was in the 1970s, it is clear to see that international aid is not doing too well. This has lead leading scholars in the field to say “strikingly, 30 years into the microfinance movement we have little solid evidence that it improves the lives of clients in measurable ways”. Recently the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank have been pushing for free trade in Africa as supposed to aid in attempt to resolve this issue but does free trade always encourage economic growth? Micro finance is the financial aid given to individuals who lack access to the mainstream finances whereas macro finance is deals with the overall economy at the larger regional or national level. In this article I will seek to investigate how both micro and macro finance have and will contribute to the development of Africa and a few of the surrounding factors. The introduction free trade has been the most recent attempt to fuel instant growth in Africa, it has many benefits such as the obvious increase in competition as trade tariffs reduce or the allowance of comparative advantage to occur, which is explained by the specialising of the production of a certain good from a country that has low opportunity cost that could potentially lead to an increase in economic welfare in all countries that have been trading with. However, there has not been much evidence to support that free trade in Africa can stimulate economic growth. Financial development in the continent of Africa has been nothing more than weak as of recent decades. Financial development of a country or continent is measured by how easy it is for the active financial systems to provide funding for entrepreneurial activities, and the extent to which financial services are made available. By this definition, this means that the volume of both micro and macro finance strategies to benefit the economies of Africa is restricted. It is a known fact that that land locked countries struggle to trade, this is because they are dependent on neighbouring countries for their external trade and therefore suffer from high trade transactions. Be that as it may, in October 2015 the continents largest free trade zone was created, covering 26 countries
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