Living standards in Benin have remained low over the last decades because of sustained demographic pressures and the absence of a growth-enhancing structural transformation. Its two leading sectors have not been engines of sustained growth. The cotton sector has been constrained by institutional instability and political interference. Cross-border trade with Nigeria has nurtured informality but also corruption, tax evasion, and political capture. Adjustment to the decline of the agricultural sector has been passive, its labour migrating to informal activities and low-productivity sectors. Capital deepening is absent, and misallocation of resources has resulted in efficiency losses and slow technological change. Weaknesses in domestic resource mobilisation and inefficiencies in expenditure management have prevented the government from addressing key challenges of economic and social development, like providing good-quality physical infrastructure, significantly improving the performance of the education and healthcare systems, or fighting persistent poverty and inequality. Benin needs to reorient its development strategy and deal with its specific institutional weaknesses.