A look back at sixty years of development thinking in action in Sub-Saharan Africa

Aid- related development in Africa has provided a breeding ground for experimentation over the last six decades through attempts to catch up or even disconnect during recent globalization and structural adjustment. All sectors and actors were impacted. Engagements, exogenous development standards, and participatory project trials led to strategies for coping or start- ups taking countries with good governance towards emergence. Multidisciplinary research yielded good diagnostics but struggled to pave the way to development, and so returned to its fundamentals. Does this situation finally offer Africa the opportunity to become a living laboratory?