Africas Recovery In The 1990s

While the design of adjustment policies in the latter part of the 1980s has generally shown greater attention to their impact on growth and social implications, this book argues that several orthodox adjustment policies are still incongruent with long-term development in Africa. It goes on to discuss a development strategy which could lead to a much awaited economic recovery and improvement in social conditions in Africa in the 1990s drawing its conclusions from a general theoretical discussion and national case-studies.

Argues that several orthodox adjustment policies are still incongruent with long-term development in Africa. The book goes on to discuss a development strategy which could lead to a much awaited economic recovery and improvement in social conditions in Africa in the 1990s.

Despite economic hardships during the past 20 years, Africa has recently enjoyed positive real economic growth, transformed its economic structures and systems, and improved living standards. Much of this owes to the determined pursuit of growth-oriented adjustment efforts, with IMF support, by nearly 30 African countries. Edited by I.G. Patel, this volume discusses progress made by Africa in the 1980s and prospects and needs for continued development in the 1990s.

African countries have experienced modest economic recovery during the 1990s. But these countries are caught in a vicious circle in which the existing economic structure cannot generate enough savings and export earnings needed to finance their development and mount a sustained assault on widespread poverty. Yet foreign aid has been cut back sharply and the continent receives only a trickle of foreign investment flows. New policy regimes are now in place, creating the right environment for external financing to make a major difference. Development finance is one of the foremost challenges facing African countries and the international community in the new century.

In 1992 the World Bank launched the Africa's Management in the 1990s research program, a comprehensive study of the issues of institutional capacity building in Sub-Saharan Africa and its effects on economic and social development. This report focuses on the program and on how to implement its main message: institutions must be both rooted in the local context and culture and open to outside challenges and influences. Chapters focus on the institutional aspects of capacity building, best practices in public administration, indigenous private sector development, and a framework for reconciliation between institutions.