This month's issue of Development Outreach – a World Bank Institute magazine – focuses on the private sector's role in stemming corruption. Articles range from general overviews of related issues to academic discussions of corruption measurement to specific reports from the field, such as this article by Celtel founder Mo Ibrahim. An excerpt:

James Ferguson’s critique of the development paradigm in The Anti-politics Machine focuses on work international agencies were doing in LeSotho to increase family incomes and create a larger cattle market. If I remember the book correctly, the scheme fails due in part to the assumption that if cattle were given to families, they would be able to sell them on the open market and improve their livelihoods.

It turned out that this well-functioning market never materialized due in part to the fact that men were holding onto their livestock indefinitely…. The reason? In this community’s culture, cattle were considered to be the sole property of the husband- if they sold them and brought back cash, their wives would have greater power in the form of disposable income which they could spend without their husband’s oversight. So many of the men simply refused to relinquish control over their household’s wealth.

UPDATE: Peter Timmer of the Center for Global Development is skeptical about the program.

The Washington Post reports this morning that the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations will partner to jump-start an African Green Revolution:

The Africa program will begin with a relatively small Gates contribution of $100 million over five years, plus $50 million from Rockefeller, to fund development of more robust disease- and drought-resistant seeds for primary African foodstuffs, enhanced distribution networks for seed and fertilizer, and university-level training for African crop scientists.

Upon seeing this, my first reaction was to ask what the private sector’s role will be. After some digging, I discovered that the new project intends to develop a network of African agro-dealers: