Our Continent, Our Future: African Perspectives on Structural Adjustment

192 Pages·1999·2.07 MB·English

by  Thandika Mkandiwire

OUR CONTINENT,
OUR FUTURE
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OUR CONTINENT,
OUR FUTURE
African Perspectives on
Structural Adjustment
(cid:1)
Thandika Mkandawire
& Charles C. Soludo
INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH CENTRE
COUNCIL FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF
SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH IN AFRICA
AFRICA WORLD PRESS
© Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa 1998
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,mechanical, photocopying, or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
COUNCIL FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF
SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH IN AFRICA
Avenue Cheikh Anta Diop, Angle Canal IV, BP 3304 Dakar, Senegal
ISBN 2-86978-074-5
CODESRIA would like to express its gratitude to the Swedish Development Co-operation
Agency (SIDA/SAREC), the Rockefeller Foundation, the International Development
Research Centre (IDRC), the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, the European
Union, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Danish Agency for International
Development (DANIDA), the Dutch Government, and the Government of Senegal for
support of its research and publication activities.
INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH CENTRE
PO Box 8500, Ottawa, ON, Canada K1G 3H9
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Mkandawire, P. Thandika
Our continent, our future : African perspectives on structural adjustment
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-88936-855-4
1. Structural adjustment (Economic policy) — Africa.
2. Africa — Economic conditions — 1960– .
3. Africa — Economic policy.
4. Africa — Social conditions — 1960– .
I. Soludo, Charles Chukwuma.
II. International Development Research Centre (Canada).
III. Title.
HC800.M55 1998 338.96 C98-901277-8
AFRICA WORLD PRESS, INC.
PO Box 1892, Trenton, NJ, USA / PO Box 48, Asmara, Eritrea
Contents
(cid:1)
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Chapter 1
BACKGROUND — ASSESSING INITIAL CONDITIONS . . . . . . . . . 1
Physical conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Human capital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Economic performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Social development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Overall political-economic structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Chapter 2
THE CRISIS — DIAGNOSIS AND PRESCRIPTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Explaining the crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Prescriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Chapter 3
THE ADJUSTMENT EXPERIENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Governance and state capacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
The nature of success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Extent of reform and degree of compliance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
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vi Our Continent, Our Future
Chapter 4
WIDENING THE ROAD AHEAD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Broadening the fundamentals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Financing industrialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Agrarian revolution and reforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Mobilization of resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Reducing the debt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Regional integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Sociopolitical fundamentals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Developmental states, once again . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Appendix — Abbreviations and Acronyms . . . . . . . . . . 143
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Foreword
(cid:1)
Africa’s dismal economic performance over the past 20 years has given
rise to a number of attempts to explain and understand the causes of such
performance. Growth regressions of various vintages identified a large,
negative “African dummy” indicating that, indeed, African growth rates
were far below those in other regions of the world. As well, most studies
seem to confirm the importance of the core variables targeted under past
adjustment programs: inflation rate, exchange rate, interest rate, and budget
deficit. However, despite nearly two decades of reform, much of Africa
remains impoverished.
A major irony of African development history is that the theories
and models employed have largely come from outside the continent. No
other region of the world has been so dominated by external ideas and
models. A growing number of institutions and scholars have expressed
serious concerns about this foreign domination, issuing a clarion call for
Africans to lead in the reform process and to think for themselves. This
major challenge is answered by this book.
Our Continent, Our Future presents an attempt by a number of
African scholars to regain the initiative in matters relating to the future
development of Africa. It presents an African perspective on the accu-
mulated evidence about Africa’s poor economic performance and is in
keeping with the recent call by the Chief Economist to the World Bank,
J. Stiglitz, for a search for wider goals and more instruments in a move
beyond the Washington Consensus.
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viii Our Continent, Our Future
A simple, straightforward, and correct reading of the accumulated
evidence clearly shows that first-generation, or orthodox, adjustment
programs did not answer Africa’s fundamental development questions.
Evidence also demonstrates development work must transcend narrow
concerns of macroeconomic stabilization. African policymakers and
scholars have consistently called for a broadening of the objectives of
development to include sustainability, equity, and governance. It is
perhaps comforting that this call is now being widely heard and accepted.
Thandika Mkandawire and Charles Soludo, two of Africa’s top
scholars, have been active participants for many years in the debates on
adjustment in Africa. In this book, they provide a succinct, yet compre-
hensive synthesis of the adjustment debate from a truly African perspective.
They urge Africans to re-enter the debate and to take control in charting
their socioeconomic and development future. In light of the recent eco-
nomic crisis in Asia, where development success was hitherto proclaimed,
this call is all the more pertinent and timely.
History and experience have taught us that development is a
complex process and that no one has all the answers. At the turn of the
millennium, Africans must take a long and hard look at their develop-
ment problematique because, in the end, only Africans can develop Africa.
This book provides important input in the search for a new consensus on
Africa’s development agenda in the 21st century. I strongly recommend
it to policymakers, analysts, researchers, academics, and development
professionals around the world.
K.Y. Amoaka
Executive Secretary
Economic Commission for Africa
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Acknowledgments
(cid:1)
In writing this synthesis volume, we have drawn extensively from some of
the papers prepared under the case studies. The very stimulating discussions
and debates during the two workshops on this project also influenced some
of the arguments here. We thank members of the steering committee (Ali
A.G. Ali; E. Inanga; A. Oyejide; G. Ssemogerere; T. Tshibaka; S. Wangwe)
for their overall guidance. In particular, we thank Dr Osita Ogbu for his
comments and tireless insistence on excellence and the “Africanness” of the
viewpoints, as well as Professors Ali Ali and Eno Inanga for their insight-
ful comments and suggestions on an earlier draft. Madame Ngone Tine
provided able research assistance for the project, and the Council for the
Development of Social Science Research in Africa — the host institution
— provided excellent support and coordination. The African Economic
Research Consortium (AERC) also gave logistical assistance during one of
the meetings of the Steering Committee, and we benefited from contacts
with researchers from AERC during one of its annual meetings. We also
thank the Centre for Development Research, in Copenhagen, for its hospi-
tality during the final writing of the document.
Finally, we thank the International Development Research Centre,
the Swedish International Development Authority, the Swedish Agency for
Research Cooperation with Developing Countries, and the Dutch Ministry
of Foreign Affairs for their financial assistance.
In addition to the Steering Committee, we thank the following,
who were project participants: S. Adejumobi, M. Ayogu, B. Bouabré, G.
Daffé, A. Diagne, C. Dordunoo, O. Eghosa, D. Ekpenyong, C. Emenuga,
C. Ewonkem, N. Hussain, C.V Izeogu, M. Jama, T.L. Kasongo, E.W.E.
Khidir, O. Kouassy, N.A. Lumumba, R. Meena, H.P.B. Moshi, F. Mwega,
F. Ogwumike, A. Olukoshi, T. Oshikoya, A. Salau, and H.H. Semboja.
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