This book argues that development strategies have thus far failed in Western Africa because the
many challenges afflicting the area have yet to be explored and understood from the perspective
of institutional resources. With a particular focus on three countries on the bend of the Upper
West African coast ¿ Guinea Liberia and Sierra Leone ¿ this book offers a theory to account
for the nature of these institutional elements to test deductions against evidence and
finally to propose a reset for rural development policy to make fuller use of local
institutional resources. Based on quantitative analysis and eight years of multidisciplinary
field research this volume features several large-scale RCTs in the domain of rural
development local governance and nature conservation. The authors address one of the biggest
topics in agricultural and development economics today: the structural transformation of poor
agrarian economies and they do so through the important and unique lens of institutions.
