Untapped human capital in Africa

We argue and demonstrate that human capital services—health, education and behavioral health—suffer from underutilized human capital. Healthcare providers, teachers, mothers and poor people have significant funds of knowledge about how to improve human capital that they do not use. This problem is not unique to Africa, but it is particularly pernicious in that setting due to historically low state capabilities. We demonstrate measurement methods that establish this gap and discuss approaches to research and policy that could be used to close the gap.