Based on equation (13), Table 2 in the Annex decomposes per capita GDP growth rates into their different components for all countries in the sample (including 12 English-speaking and 12 Frenchspeaking countries). All figures are annualized growth rates averaged over a five-year consecutive disjoint time period covering three decades spanning the years 1980-2010. The time frame is dictated by the availability of data. However, it also includes two contrasting growth episodes: the 1980-1995 period; and the post-HIPC, especially the period running from 1995 up to the global economic downturn in 2008.

While the earlier period has been characterized as the ― _economic tragedy of the 20_<sup>_th_</sup> _century_ ‖ in reference to the significant human and social costs associated with sustained economic contraction in the region (see Easterly and Levine (1997), Artadi and Sala-i-Martin (2003)), the latter period has been singled out as one of exceptional growth [Kasekende et al. (2010), Devarajan and Shetty (2010)]. This contrasting growth picture over the reference period enables one to assess the relative contribution of women to growth during growth spurts as well as economic downturns.

Per capita GDP growth rates are actual growth rates. They are consistent with the poor performance of most countries in the region in the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s. For most countries, output contraction is associated with negative TFP during the 1980s downturn. Reflecting the TFP effect on growth, the income growth enjoyed by countries in the second half of the 1990s is equally associated with positive TFP. In particular, the 4.5% growth rate enjoyed by post-conflict Uganda in the aftermath of the civil war is largely the result of impressive TFP growth. TFP accounted for nearly 60% of the total GDP growth (see Table 2 in the Annex).

TFP also accounts for a large contribution to growth in post-conflict Rwanda in the late 1990s. Even when annualized growth rates are estimated over the entire reference period (1980-2010), the TFP contribution remains strong, emerging as the largest individual growth component. This result is consistent with most empirical findings which show that TFP have accounted for the largest contribution to growth in both advanced and developing countries in recent years [World Bank (2005)].<sup>25</sup> However, in the African setting of low-technological endowment, the intensity of factors utilization rather than technological change and increased technical efficiency may account for the large part of the TFP contribution to aggregate growth.

The contribution of non-TFP induced capital deepening is also positive and growth-enhancing, especially in the few countries which enjoy robust growth over the reference period. In particular, capital accounts for a disproportionately large share of growth in Mozambique and Swaziland (see Table 2 in the Annex). However, in the midst of that positive contribution of capital to growth, there is a large variation across countries, from 3.4 percentage points (accounting for a significant share of total growth) in Mozambique to negative 2.3 percentage points in Zimbabwe (corresponding to a major drag on per capita growth).<sup>26</sup>

> 25 For instance, World Bank calculations indicate that technological change explained one third of the increase in per capita income in East Asia up to the early 1990s.

> 26 The rather low growth performance achieved by Mozambique despite the large contribution of capital is in part due to excess population growth, a major drag on growth and poor technological endowment illustrated by negative TFP.

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