Kempe Ronald Hope Sr. - African Political Economy: Contemporary Issues in Development

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AFRICAN
POLITICAL
ECONOMY

AFRICAN
POLITICAL
ECONOMY

Contemporary
Issues in
Development

Kempe Ronald Hope, Sr.

First published 1997 by M.E. Sharpe

Published 2015 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright 1997 Taylor & Francis. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Notices
No responsibility is assumed by the publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use of operation of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in the material herein.

Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility.

Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hope, Kempe R.
African political economy: contemporary issues
in development / Kempe Ronald Hope, Sr.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-56324-941-3 (hardcover : alk. paper).
ISBN 1-56324-942-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. BotswanaEconomic conditions 1966
2. BotswanaEconomic policy. 3. AfricaEconomic
conditions1960 4. AfricaEconomic policy. I. Title.
HC930.H67 1996
338.96-dc20 96-24893
CIP

ISBN 13: 9781563249426 (pbk)
ISBN 13: 9781563249419 (hbk)

To the Peoples of Africa

Contents

Beginning in the 1970s and worsening in the 1980s, Africa has been a continent in rapid decline. That tragic situation has resulted in the 1980s being declared as Africas lost decade.

Using an interdisciplinary political economy approach, this book captures the issues and factors related to the African development dilemma by delineating the main components of the continents socioeconomic crisis and analyzing the requirements and elements of the challenge of policy reform and change for the twenty-first century.

Africa, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, with its undiversified economic structure and undeveloped policy infrastructure, has been immobilized by its inability to adjust to the external and internal shocks it has experienced. The continent is now the poorest region in the world and it is the only region where poverty is expected to increase in the future. In short, the peoples of Africa are in despair.

This book catalogues the factors contributing to such despair. They include a crippling total external debt; a weakening balance of payments; intensification of the brain drain; deepening capital flight; declining agricultural productivity and foreign direct investment; deteriorating physical infrastructure; escalating unemployment and crime; pronounced famine and malnutrition; soaring budget deficits; rapid urbanization; expanding environmental degradation; worsening political and civil strife; rampant corruption; and increasing poverty, socioeconomic inequalities, population growth rates, and incidence of ADDS.

However, in this sea of despair there are African countries, such as Botswana, that are models of success (depicted in good governance and prudent and successful economic management) for the rest to emulate. Also, several other countries have begun to make the transition from the lost decade of the 1980s to the promise of the twenty-first century. Some countries have even made significant progress toward political and economic liberalization. The task facing the continent, therefore, is to spread and sustain these gains throughout the region, which requires a much more indigenous vision and long-term perspective thinking.

It is undisputed that Africa needs to develop a new shared vision of its future that embraces economic and political liberalization as well as regional cooperation and integration. Improving policies alone can boost growth substantially, but if neighboring countries adopt a policy change together, the effects on growth would be more than double what they would be with one country acting alone.

Policy reform and change are of crucial importance in Africa. But so also are the political processes from which the choices of policy reform and change emerge, are implemented, and are sustained. Undoubtedly, politics has been an obstacle to development in postcolonial Africa. This book amply demonstrates that bad governance has been bad for the development process in Africa. Consequently, if the vision for the twenty-first century is to be realized, Africas leaders must display a new political resolve both to disengage from authoritarian, nondemocratic systems of personal rule, and to dismantle the bureaucratic obstacles to policy reform and change. Then, and only then, can policy reform and change take hold to reverse the continents tragic decline and marginalization.

In preparing this book, I received, as usual, generous advice and intellectual support from several colleagues. I would like to make particular mention of Dr. Derick A.C. Boyd of the University of East London; Professor Rudy Grant of York University; Mr. Gladson K. Kayira of the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning of the government of Botswana; and Dr. Laurence C. Clarke, Director of the Caribbean Center for Monetary Studies and a consummate Africanist. Of course, neither individually nor collectively do they bear any responsibility for the final output as contained herein. I also express here a debt of gratitude to Olivia for putting up with my demands for meeting the deadlines for word processing and editing.

The views expressed in this book are private and do not necessarily represent the views of the United Nations or any of its affiliated agencies, the government of Botswana, or any other institution with which I am currently affiliated.

KRH, Sr.
Gaborone, Botswana

Some of the chapters in this book have been adapted, revised, and/or expanded from some of my previous work. The following are the relevant acknowledgments:

was adapted from a paper commissioned for the 1996 Biennial Conference of the Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and Management, Malta, April 2124, 1996.

Part I
Development Problems and Issues

1
The Economic Crisis in Africa: An Analytical Perspective on Its Origins and Nature

The majority of African countries are experiencing a serious economic crisis. That crisis, though showing signs of moderation in some countries, has resulted in development eluding most of the others, with far-reaching negative consequences on their populaces. When there is no development, there is hopelessness; and where there is hopelessness, there is no effort to work toward development. The circle becomes complete and reinforcing.

Unfortunately, in most of Africa, the economic crisis has made life an endless series of vicious circles that are now spreading economic suffering in a concentrated fashion. The economic crisis in Africa represents a historical tragedy, and the historical evidence now suggests that such a crisis need not have occurred. Despite some views to the contrary, the overwhelming opinion is that this economic crisis is primarily the inevitable outcome of the failure of postindependence development policy formulation and implementation in the majority of the African countries.

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