This paper tests the hypothesis that there exists a long-run relationship between domestic investment, savings, and financial development in a group of French-speaking African countries. We focus on French-speaking countries due to the similarities in their banking sectors and the traditional links they have had with French financial institutions. The countries included in our study are Algeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Morocco, Senegal, and Tunisia.  We use cointegration and Granger causality techniques to study the short-run dynamics and the long-run behavior of the three variables. We use annual data for the period 1960-2002 from the World Bank World Development Indicators (WDI) database (2005). Our (alternate) indicators or financial development are the ratio of private credit by deposit money banks and other financial institutions to GDP, labeled CRPRIV, and the ratio of broad money (M2) to gross domestic product (GDP). Both indicators have been used in several studies and, in particular, they were used in recent empirical studies of the impact of financial development on investment (see Benhabib and Spiegel, 2000; and Ndikumana, 2000). 
Specifically, this study tests the hypothesis that there exists a stable (long-run) relationship between private savings, domestic investment and financial development. This information is crucial to the actual impact of financial reform (and development) on investment and growth. We believe that an accurate calibration of both long-run and dynamic effects of various government policies on investment and saving would allow inferences about the macroeconomic implications of financial reform.