Abstract: On the whole, Africa's most recent economic performance has been positive. While this is an encouraging development, it has to be seen in the context of negative historical trends, variations in country performances, and the massive poverty that characterizes the region. Modest, short-lived economic growth is insufficient to make an appreciable dent into deep-seated poverty. Africa's economic prospects depend on several factors, on non of which it is easy to make confident predictions: the prevalence of peace and stability; the evolution of political systems conducive to development; the design and implementation of appropriate economic and social policies; and the emergence of an international order (especially with respect to trade, aid, debt and information technology) that is favourable to the region. While there is room for cautious optimism in most of these areas, exaggerated hopes are certainly unwarranted.
It is sometimes difficult to avoid the feeling that anyone who ventures to speak confidently on the future of Africa2 must either be a fool or pretend to be a prophet. Those who do not fall in either category must undertake the task with extreme caution. This is so for at least two major reasons. The first is the complex heterogeneity of the region, which is frustrating to the compulsive generalizer. Such is the diversity among African countries that one wonders if there is anything more than the accident of geography that justifies lumping them in one category. Wherein lies the merit of talking in the same terms about, for example, Nigeria and Lesotho, South Africa and Benin, Zaire and Botswana, Ethiopia and Namibia? Whatever aspect one wishes to focus on - demography, resource endowments, territorial size, economic performance, politics, culture, history - the differences between countries are pronounced. In view of such diversity, even when generalizations about Africa are justified, they need to be modified by several qualifications if they are not to be seriously misleading.
The second problem has to do with the dynamics of the African situation. This is best appreciated by doing a fast-rewind of history to the early 1960s. Had anyone then dared to make a prediction about what Africa would look like at the end of the century, he or she would most probably turn out to be a rather humbled prophet now. The euphoria of the immediate post-independence era was palpable. It was not for nothing that the 1960s were called the African decade. Country after country acceded to independence in quick succession. "Seek ye first the political kingdom", said Kwame Nkrumah - one of the giants of that age - "and all else will follow". Alas, this was not to be. Now, a generation after "flag independence", Africa cannot account well for itself. How different reality has turned out from the hopes and expectations of the 1960s. The point is that, in a context of many complex variables at work and of rapidly changing conditions, a look into the future is not something that can be undertaken in cavalier fashion.
However, it is not an altogether useless or impossible exercise. For all the diversity in the region, there is also much that most countries have in common. One is obviously poverty and underdevelopment. Not even the potentially wealthiest countries in Africa, most notably South Africa and Nigeria, have come to grips with the problems of poverty and underdevelopment. While the factors at work in various countries may not be identical, the underlying causes of poverty are probably much the same. Without being oblivious of the cases that can be cited as exceptions to virtually every generalization, one recognizes that the sorry economic and social situation in Africa justifies looking at the forest, even if one runs the risk of missing the individual trees.
The second common element is the shared legacy of colonialism. Most African countries have had a colonial past, and although it is absurd to attempt to explain Africa's setbacks exclusively in terms of that past, there is no doubt that the history of colonialism has had a considerable impact on the trajectory followed by African states in the post-independence period. Marx was right: human beings do make their own history, but not entirely as they wish; they do so only within inherited historical circumstances. Colonialism was never a homogenous affair, but its impact was almost uniform everywhere, a point which justifies looking at Africa as one entity.
Thirdly, the political history of Africa has on the whole been woven out of the same cloth; it is a history of authoritarian rule, violent transfers of power, predatory states, and civil conflict.
Again, there are exceptions to this generalization, but it is a statement that is true of most countries, and probably of all the major ones: South Africa, Nigeria, Zaire, Ethiopia, Uganda, Sudan, Angola, Mozambique.
In other words, there is much that is common, making it justifiable to attempt some generalizations. The upshot of all this is that, although speaking about the future of Africa is a tricky exercise, it can be attempted if we keep in mind the great diversity in the region and the dynamics of the unfolding situation. It is to this task that we now turn.
Recent economic statistics out of Africa show a refreshing departure from the doom and gloom of the past twenty years. For instance, according to the World Bank(1996a:71), "Sub-Saharan Africa's gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to have grown by 4.0 percent in 1995 - a significant improvement over the period 1991-94 (1.4 percent on average) - and economists are forecasting an even higher rate of growth in 1996". It is also noteworthy that "thirty countries, accounting for 61 percent of the region's population, recorded positive per capita income growth in 1995". Compared to East Asian performance, these figures are hardly impressive, and there is no African tiger looming on the horizon. However, relative to the gloomy performance of the 1980s and early 1990s, this is certainly a creditable showing.
However, behind the statistics lies a much more complex reality. First, as suggested earlier, averages for Africa as a whole mislead as much as they inform. As the Bank (1996a:71) itself acknowledges,
aggregate numbers such as these mask wide variations by country, as in the past. Thus, while at least fifteen countries grew by 5 percent or more in 1995 (four - Angola, Lesotho, Malawi, and Uganda - experienced growth rates in excess of 10 percent), others (Burundi, Congo, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Zaire, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) registered declines.
In other words, the successes of "star performers" such as Uganda are overshadowed by the failures of those such as Nigeria (a giant with clay feet, whose economy has stagnated); Zaire (a country of unsurpassed potential, but whose economy has been run into the ground by decades of mismanagement and venal corruption, and which seems to be on the brink of a major disaster as these lines are being written); and Rwanda (which remains a war-torn disaster, thanks to bloodletting of mind-boggling proportions).
Second, recent positive developments are only the icing on the cake. Underneath is a historical trend that cautions against reading too much into recent statistics. Between 1980 and 1993, GNP per capita declined by 0.8 per cent, the poorest performance of all regions of the world.3 This is in stark contrast to the performance of South Asia and East Asia and the Pacific, which registered growth of 3 and 6.4 per cent, respectively. It also contrasts with Africa's own earlier performance. The growth rate of GDP, which had averaged 3.8 per cent in the 1970s, was down to 1.6 per cent during 1980-93.
Looking at individual country performances is also revealing. During 1980-93, of the 37 countries for which data are provided, thirteen experienced a rise in per capita income (ranging from 0.1 to 5.5 per cent, with the highest increases registered in small countries such as Mauritius, Seychelles, Cape Verde, Swaziland, Guinea Bissau, and Equatorial Guinea); one (Senegal) showed no change; and 23 suffered declines (the most notable being Mozambique, Malawi, Madagascar, Nigeria, Zambia, Côte d'Ivoire and South Africa).
Other macroeconomic parameters show the same pattern of decline. Gross domestic investment as a ratio of GDP fell from 21 per cent in 1970 to 16 per cent in 1993. Interestingly, Africa had a higher investment rate than South Asia (16 per cent) in 1970, but by 1993 the latter region's investment rate had exceeded that of Africa by seven per cent. Likewise, gross domestic saving fell from 18 to 15 per cent during the same period, while it rose from 15 to 21 per cent in South Asia.
Of 48 countries in the region, 39 are in the low-income category, and none belongs to the high-income league. Of the nine in the middle-income group, seven - Mauritius, Seychelles, Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland, Gabon, and Cape Verde - have a combined population of less than six million, or merely one percent of the regional total. The other two are South Africa and Angola. As is well-known, South Africa is a special case, and the national per capita income figure says very little about the situation of the vast majority of people in that country. Race-disaggregated per capita income figures would doubtless have a different story to tell. Angola is only beginning to take its first, halting steps in post-war reconstruction. By and large, therefore, Africa is a low-income region.
On the basis of the foregoing review, one can venture a few generalizations.4 To begin with, economic growth in the region, except in a few countries and for limited periods of time, has been sluggish. More seriously, even where per capita incomes have risen, they have generally been inadequate to make a dent in the deep-seated poverty that characterizes the region. By conservative estimates, at least half of the African population is estimated to live in absolute poverty, and all predictions are that the numbers of the poor will be increasing as we move into the twenty-first century.
Second, the economies have experienced little structural transformation, one manifestation of which has been limited export diversification. Most countries of the region remain highly dependent on primary production and export. In the World Bank's classification of economies by major export categories, not a single African country belongs to the "exporters of manufactures" league; on the other hand, 26 are listed as "exporters of nonfuel primary products" (World Bank, 1996b:53-54). In many cases, export earnings are dominated by one or two commodities. For instance, coffee is the most dominant or one of the two most dominant export commodities in several countries; its share of total export earnings was 56 per cent in Uganda, 57 per cent in Ethiopia, 62 per cent in Rwanda, and 76 per cent in Burundi. Other commodities are crude oil in Angola (94 per cent), diamonds in Botswana (75 per cent), tobacco in Malawi (69 per cent), and copper in Zambia (82 per cent).5 With such a narrow production and export base, Africa's participation in international markets is bound to be limited.
Third, African economies are vulnerable to shocks, both internal and external. Political instability currently afflicts several countries, and many others are potential candidates. Recurrent droughts stalk the African countryside, and it is difficult to think of any country that is insulated from their serious and at times devastating effects. World prices for the region's exports, though erratic, have shown a discernible downward long-term trend. In contrast, import prices have soared, and most African countries are heavily dependent on imported fuel, machinery and transport equipment. Thus, the terms of trade for Africa fell from 110 in 1985 to 95 in 1993 (given a base value of 100 for 1987) (World Bank, 1995:187).
The debt burden - which is at least in part an exogenous factor - continues to be heavy. Thirty countries in the region (or about two-thirds) are severely indebted and seven are moderately indebted6. According to the World Bank, "aggregate debt to export ratios improved in 1995 for all regions except Sub-Saharan Africa"; the ratio for the region has been rising steadily, reaching 270 per cent in 1995 (World Bank, 1996b:33).
Fourth, a positive development has been an improvement in the macroeconomic policy environment, which has generally grown more liberal, especially with respect to prices and exchange and interest rates. Interest rates have moderated in some countries and exchange rates have tended to stabilize, although there are still a number of exceptions. Also, several countries have attempted to create more conducive environments for investment, both domestic and foreign.
Fifth, however, the region has not had much success in attracting foreign investment, and domestic rates of investment and saving mobilization continue to be low. Foreign direct investment in Africa fell to $2.2 billion in 1995 from $3 billion in 1994. The region accounts for only 2.4 per cent of total foreign direct investment in developing countries, and the lion's share of even this limited portion is accounted for by Nigeria and South Africa (World Bank, 1996b:18). The gross domestic investment rate is lower than that of any other part of the world, and as indicated earlier, it declined from 21 per cent of GDP in 1970 to 16 per cent in 1993, the figure for all developing countries in that year being 24 per cent.
The problem is not only one of the level of investment; it is also one of its efficiency. For a fairly long period now, Africa has been experiencing a steady decline in returns to investment. According to the World Bank (1989:25), "by the 1980s, ... [returns to investment] were only about one-tenth of the levels in South Asia; they had been more than one-third higher in the 1960s and early 1970s". A major explanatory factor is declining productivity, due - in turn - to higher investment costs (partly due to difficult topography, which makes road construction and irrigation expensive, and to expensive imports of skills and goods), bad policies, and poor management of public resources, including utilities such as electricity, water and communications. In addition the HIV/AIDS pandemic - in concert with other mass killers such as malaria - undermines investment in education and labour productivity. These factors erode efficiency in both the private and public sectors and multiply the costs of doing business (World Bank, 1989:27).
The picture on the saving side is likewise unsatisfactory. Between 1970 and 1993, gross domestic saving in Africa fell from 18 per cent of GDP to 15 per cent, the figure for all developing countries being 23 per cent (World Bank, 1995:179). In such circumstances, domestic resource mobilization poses formidable challenges.
Sixth, in several countries it has proved extremely difficult to impose fiscal and monetary discipline. Budget deficits have been rising and two-digit inflation prevails in most countries. With respect to inflation, the really alarming cases are few: Angola (where it reached 3000 per cent in 1995); Mozambique (where it averaged more than 50 per cent in 1995); and Zambia (where the average for the same period was more than 110 per cent, although it had declined to 30 per cent by 1995). But - with the exception of some of the smallest countries - the inflation rate for most countries averages about 20 per cent or more, which gives no room for complacency, particularly with respect to the impact of inflation on the incomes of the poor. Experience with trimming budget deficits has also been generally unsatisfactory, largely due to limited success in containing government expenditures (notably military spending) and poor resource mobilization, including weak, poorly administered and corrupt tax collection systems. This has tended to frustrate efforts at macroeconomic stabilization.
All told, therefore, the region continues to face the challenges of growth and development in their full enormity.
Based on the foregoing, what can be said about the prospects for African economic recovery? As suggested at the outset, confident prediction is out of the question, given Africa's complexity and the dynamics of the situation, both internally and externally.
Recent African history provides abundant material for predicting gloom. After all, there is not much in the African economic performance of the last generation or so to justify optimism. Yet to dismiss the whole region as a basket case (thereby giving vent to the worst forms of "Afro-pessimism") is neither intellectually nor morally acceptable. The (admittedly) few successes show there is hope for the future, and there is need to examine these for the lessons they provide. However, one must recognize that Africa's problems do not yield to pat solutions. In other words, grand expectations are also out of the question, at least in the immediate future. What is required is an identification of the various factors that will be decisive in shaping Africa's future and a sober analysis of their likely impact.
Of such factors, the political ones stand out as most fundamental. It may be taken as axiomatic that Africa's shattered economies will not be able to recover in the absence of peace and political stability.7 A glance at today's headlines will show how far Africa is from this goal: Zaire, Rwanda, Burundi, Angola, Somalia, Liberia, to name the major ones. In fact, there are not many African countries of which it can be said that they do not have within them the potential for instability and conflict. Exclusive focus on the disaster-ridden countries of the day is bound to create despair and despondency.
However, a sense of perspective is the best antidote to such pessimism. Suffice it to turn the clock back a mere decade, and a new perspective emerges. Ten years ago, apartheid was deeply entrenched in South Africa, and not even the most optimistic would have predicted its demise in a matter of years; Namibia was fighting for independence; Ethiopia was in the throes of a devastating civil war; Uganda was just emerging out of chaos and instability; and Angola and Mozambique were bleeding from conflicts that seemed to have no end in sight. The situation in these countries is still full of uncertainties, and nobody should be surprised if one or more of them enter yet another cycle of self-destruction. And others that seem tranquil now may face chaos tomorrow. 8 The point is that, while there is no room for complacency, cautious optimism is certainly in order.
A second crucial factor is the type of leadership and governance that will emerge in Africa in the next century. Unfortunately, abundant experience demonstrates that Africa has been, on the whole, very badly served by its "leaders". To a large extent, the failure of Africa can be attributed to a failure of leadership. On the basis of such experience, it would be naive to expect the emergence of exemplary leadership in the next few years. The type of leadership Africa needs for its reconstruction is one that is people-oriented (not merely in rhetoric but in action); visionary in the sense of being conscious of what direction to follow and what goal(s) to seek; guided by what it wills Africa to be in the next century while mindful of past trends and current realities; and capable of inspiring and mobilizing citizens for the immense tasks of development that lie ahead.
However, inspiring and mobilizing are likely to prove extremely difficult tasks, given the track record of the state in Africa. Most Africans have lost faith in government, and it will not be easy to restore it.
A predatory state and Hobbesian politics have ruined the prospects of development by spreading alienation, resentment, inefficiency, and corruption. Politically disenfranchised and set upon by state violence, the people are no longer available for supporting the state or its development project. Some of them have retreated to ethnic or communal identity and local concerns. Political repression has forced highly educated and talented people to become political or economic refugees in other countries, their talents lost to the cause of national development (Ake, 1996:117).
But a leadership that enjoys the people's trust is an indispensable desideratum for moving Africa forward. Only such a leadership can salvage hope out of desperation.
Does such a leadership have to be democratic? Many will answer this question in the negative, and they will be quick to cite the experiences of the East Asian tigers and of Pinochet's Chile. In fact, it was for a long time conventional wisdom that economic growth requires a leadership that has the "political will" to push through unpopular measures which will ultimately be good for growth. It is one of those ironic twists that this very same school of thought is now just as vocal in arguing that democratic governance is a prerequisite for growth; hence the need for political conditionalities (Mkandawire, 1994).
That economic growth can take place in the context of dictatorship need not be disputed. However, that it must necessarily be linked to authoritarian regimes is hardly defensible. In the first place, Africa seeks democracy not for its instrumental role in generating growth, but precisely because it is an end in itself. Only a democratic order can ensure for the citizen such fundamentals as
the right to liberty, personal security and participation in the political process; freedom from torture and from cruel, inhumane or degrading punishment; the right to recognition and equal treatment under the law and to effective judicial remedy; freedom from arbitrary interference, and freedom of association and assembly (The Economist, 7 September 1996:4).
Moreover, what Africa seeks should not be merely growth; that is a decidedly beaten path. Africa should strive for a modus operandi in which people have an effective say in their lives. For this to happen, it is society - not the state - that needs to be empowered.
To be sure, up to a point it is possible for the people to be the means of development without the need for a democratic political system: the people can be coerced or manipulated to give their resources to promote their leaders' notion of development. However, this process of enlisting the people's resources is oppressive and exploitative rather than emancipatory, and a process that is not emancipatory cannot be conducive to development. An oppressive and exploitative way of seeking development is a contradiction in terms. That leaves the option of the people making themselves the means of development, and this option requires political democracy (Ake, 1996:126-127).
Secondly, as African experience demonstrates only too abundantly, authoritarian rule is no guarantee for economic growth. On the contrary, most of Africa's dictatorial regimes have been singularly incapable of delivering growth, either because of disastrous management or because of the relentless pursuit of personal gain at the expense of society, or both. The curtailing of democracy in the pursuit of illusory growth is a choice that must be rejected outright.9
What are the prospects for instituting democratic rule in Africa? An obvious answer is that the situation varies from country to country. Looked at generally, there have been certain encouraging developments. The doctrine of one-party rule, which held such sway in most African countries for such a long time, no longer enjoys the status of an axiom. In many countries the era of one-party government seems to be over, and citizens' involvement has been on the rise. However, without belittling the significance of this trend, one must also recognize that much more remains to be done. There is, after all, quite a gap between the form and the substance of democracy. There is more to democracy than multiple parties and elections. Democracy is about building institutions and strengthening civil society, tasks which cannot be accomplished overnight. It also involves the active participation of citizens in all decisions that affect their lives.10 Short of this, it is impossible to guarantee that even those who come to power on the backs of popular movements will not entrench themselves as anti-people ruling cliques. There is room for guarded optimism, but not for much more.
Another set of crucial factors is related to economic and social policies. First, much progress has been made in pushing through economic reforms. A key issue in this area is the role of the state in the economy. On account of a variety of factors, some endogenous, others external, the paradigm of state-driven development no longer holds undisputed sway in policy thinking. While this is a generally welcome development, it must be qualified by at least two considerations. One is that in several countries progress on this front has been hesitant, uneven, and of limited impact. The experience with structural adjustment programmes, a topic of much controversy, suggests that they have delivered much less than promised. There is no need to revisit the controversies here. The following quotation, which refers to Ghana - that much advertised "success story" of structural adjustment for thirteen years - captures the prevailing state of disillusionment:
The aura of success surrounding Ghana's adjustment efforts has been fading. Economic growth has slowed down; inflation has become a major concern; the cedi has been depreciating, further fuelling inflation but without maintaining incentives to export; unemployment is increasing; and there appears to have been little reduction in poverty. Thus the claims for major successes in reversing economic decline and establishing a more democratic government, especially in relation to development elsewhere in the region, now have to be tempered by the continuing difficulties facing the economy (ODI, 1996:4).
Economic reforms have also often paid scant attention to their social consequences, especially their impact on the poor.
A second qualification made necessary by the departure from the model of state-driven development is the danger that a new (perhaps not so new) orthodoxy seems to have attained dominance, namely that virtually everything should be left to the market and that state intervention is uniformly counterproductive. This is a prescription African countries would be ill-advised to swallow wholesale. For there is much the state can and must do in Africa: creating an enabling environment for development, promoting investment in people, providing social protection to those most in need, accelerating infrastructural development, etc. An active state is still indispensable.
Interestingly, in the context of Africa - where markets generally function poorly - it takes an active state, not a passive one, to nurture them and ensure their effective functioning. This comes out clearly from the East Asian experience, where
governments intervened actively in the market, but used, complemented, regulated, and indeed created markets, rather than supplanted them. Governments created an environment in which markets could thrive. Governments promoted exports, education, and technology; encouraged cooperation between government and industry and between firms and their workers; and at the same time encouraged competition (Stiglitz, 1996:174).
However, it is amazing that some of those who recognize the role played by the state in East Asian development are hesitant to recommend that role for Africa. A good example is a World Bank study which found out that
in most of these economies, in one form or another, the government intervened - systematically and through multiple channels - to foster development, and in some cases the development of specific industries. Policy interventions took many forms: targeting and subsidizing credit to selected industries, keeping deposit rates low and maintaining ceilings on borrowing rates to increase profits and retained earnings, protecting domestic import substitutes, subsidizing declining industries, establishing and financially supporting government banks, making public investments in applied research, establishing firm-and-industry-specific export targets, developing export marketing institutions, and sharing information widely between public and private sectors (World Bank, 1994:5-6).
Should other countries attempt to emulate this experience? The answer is an unequivocal no; in fact, "the prerequisites for success were so rigorous that policymakers seeking to follow similar paths in other developing economies have often met with failure" (World Bank,1994:6). Moreover, "the fact that interventions were an element of some East Asian economies' success does not mean that they should be attempted everywhere ..."(World Bank, 1994:26). In part this is because the efficiency of the public service in East Asia is so high that countries with less reputable government bureaucracies should not even consider deliberate interventions. Africa, in other words, would be best served by the neoclassical paradigm. It is this kind of double-standard that one finds difficult to accept.
However, it should be emphasized that to call for an active state is not to condone inefficiency. The state should be held to rigorous standards of efficiency in all its activities. The point is that the tasks of poverty reduction and development cannot be left to the market in the African context. "The ability of the private sector to fill the gap left by the retrenchment of the state has too often been presumed without establishing the necessary conditions for its development" (Ndulu and van de Walle, 1996:11).
This brings us to the question of development strategies. A dominant theme of past development strategies has been emphasis on purely growth objectives (increasing per capita income, promoting exports, reducing the current account deficit, etc.). That these are desirable objectives brooks no dispute. However, when they are pursued in disregard of the human dimensions of development (poverty reduction, increasing access to health and education, issues of equity, etc.), their wisdom is highly questionable. Given African realities, poverty reduction should be explicitly built into development strategies, paying attention to generating means of livelihood (with appropriate focus on agricultural development), improving the poor's access to productive inputs, investing in poor people through basic social services such as health and education, and providing safety nets to those who may be marginalized by the processes of growth and economic reform, or affected by temporary disasters. In short, much will depend on the extent to which policies will be people-centred (see Eshetu Chole, 1996).
Another factor that will determine the economic future of the region is the demographic dynamics, especially they interact with the environment. Africa's demographic dynamics are unfavourable. The region's average annual population growth rate is 2.9 per cent, which means population size will double by the year 2025 if current trends continue. The age structure of the population, which is heavily skewed in favour of the young, does not make the prospect brighter; it exposes Africa to what demographers call the hidden population momentum. In the context of continued and widespread poverty, unchecked population growth has an adverse impact on the environment, which has been deteriorating significantly, in turn exacerbating the poverty problem. A related problem is fast urban growth, far out of pace with the growth of economic opportunities.
Finally, Africa's economic recovery will depend on the international economic environment. "The plight of the African continent remains the most serious challenge for the emerging world order" (World Bank, 1995:122). Whatever aspect of the global economy one considers - aid, investment, trade, the informatics revolution - Africa's prospects give no cause for jubilation.
The future of official development assistance is in doubt, largely due to what has been termed donor fatigue: "The poor economic performance of may traditional aid recipients (and some aid agencies), many of them in Sub-Saharan Africa, has tried the patience of supporters of aid programmes and increased skepticism about the effectiveness of aid" (World Bank, 1996b:29). However, the decline of donor interest in aid is also a reflection of changed perceptions of self-interest. What could make this point clearer than the following statement by the United States Institute for National Strategic Studies? "The US has essentially no serious military/geostrategic interests in Africa any more, other than the inescapable fact that its vastness poses an obstacle to deployment in the Middle East and South Asia, whether by sea or air"11.
It is true that, in relative terms, Africa has received a higher share of net resource transfers from official sources than any other part of the world, but this must be viewed in the context of declining global levels of assistance. As a percentage of donors' GNP, official development assistance was by 1995 at its lowest point in twenty years. Even more germane to African countries is that "after growing for a number of years, concessional assistance to developing countries from official sources peaked in the early 1990s and has been declining since. The poorest countries are not being protected from these declines, and the prospects for aid flows in the next few years appear to be dim" (World Bank, 1996b:29).
The prospects for foreign investment are not much brighter; in any case, most of it tends to flow to the better-off developing countries, as has been pointed out earlier.
With respect to international trade, Africa's access to markets has always been limited, and the future is uncertain. There is a contention that the Uruguay Round will bring about long-term gains to Africa, but "most believe that, at least in the short run, Africa's trade prospects will suffer and that the continent is likely to be further marginalized as a result of its implementation" (UN, 1996:10). It is unlikely that exporters of primary products will gain from trade liberalization. "Even in the relatively simple labour-intensive industries like clothing, where new producers are likely to emerge, a large gain to Africa is not assured in the next ten years" (UN, 1996:10). However, intra-regional trade could expand somewhat, helped by moves to harmonized easing and lowering of border regulations and tariffs under the auspices of such regional arrangements as Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), the East African Community, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, and the Economic Community of West African States. However, exaggerated hopes pinned on the impact of this trend are unwarranted, since Africa's experience with regional integration has generally been uninspiring.
Another aspect of the external economic environment is the debt burden, which - as pointed out earlier - continues to be a tight bottleneck. Although several debt relief initiatives have been launched in recent years, they have not meaningfully lightened Africa's debt burden. The latest such initiative is "the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Debt Initiative" spearheaded by the World Bank and the IMF. Although the initiative's focus on the poorest debt-ridden countries is a welcome development, it is worth noting that it targets HIPCs that adopt programmes of adjustment and reform sustained by the two financial institutions, and stipulates a six-year performance period that would be closely monitored by them. In other words, conditionality - that much detested word from the lexicon of structural adjustment - is still very much in place. The effectiveness of the initiative remains to be seen, but there is much in its design that warrants skepticism.
No discussion of the international environment can be complete without mention of the phenomenon of globalization, especially the revolution in information technology. This revolution, which is exerting a tremendous impact on the world economy, has, as of now, not created more than a feeble ripple in African economies. It is difficult to speak with any degree of certainty on the impact of globalization on Africa's prospects in the evolving global economic order. That the revolution in informatics has the potential for raising productivity is not disputable. What is at issue, however, is whether Africa will be able to take advantage of this potential and harness it for its own development. Doing so requires a critical minimum of indigenous skills, which - unfortunately - cannot be taken for granted in Africa. Therefore, without denying the tremendous impact of the informatics revolution on productivity and on the way the world does business, one must also be aware that there are real prospects of Africa being left behind in the race. Already positioned on the margin of the world economy, the region risks being further marginalized as the information revolution accelerates.12
To sum up, the future is uncertain. It poses several challenges, but it also offers opportunities. The challenges are certainly daunting, but if the opportunities are realized, there is hope for economic and social progress in Africa.13 However, it would be illusory to expect short-term miracles. If there is light at the end of the tunnel, we must bear in mind that the tunnel may be long and the light a flickering - not a steady - flame. In the immediate future, it is the struggle for survival that will claim most of Africa's effort.
By the end of the first quarter of the coming millennium, however, Africa should be content if it manages to attain a reasonable degree of peace and political stability and a substantial reduction in the levels of economic and social poverty. This would represent a considerable departure from the past - and the present.14
1. This paper draws on a chapter I wrote for a forthcoming publication, Africa's Children: Growing into the 21st Century. Challenges to Society in Eastern and Southern Africa, currently in preparation under the auspices of UNICEF Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office.
2. In this paper, "Africa" refers to Sub-Saharan Africa.
3. Statistics in the rest of this section are from World Bank, World Development Report 1995 and World Development Report 1996.
4. There is no attempt here to make the list of generalizations exhaustive. The observations made focus on some of the more relevant aspects of the African economic scene.
5. The Economist Intelligence Unit, various country reports.
6. The World Bank uses two ratios to determine degree of indebtedness. One is the ratio of the present value of total debt service to GNP (PV/GNP) and the second is the ratio of the present value of total debt service to exports of goods and services (PV/XGS). A country is classified as severely indebted if PV/GNP is higher than 80 per cent or PV/XGS is higher than 220 per cent; as moderately indebted if PV/GNP is less than 80 per cent but higher than 132 per cent; and as less indebted if PV/GNP is less than 48 per cent and PV/XGS is less than 132 per cent. On the basis of these criteria, the less indebted countries in Africa are Burkina Faso, Lesotho, Botswana, Djibouti, Mauritius, Seychelles and Swaziland. The moderately indebted countries are Chad, Comoros, The Gambia, Malawi, Senegal, Zimbabwe and Cape Verde. All others are severely indebted. Ethiopian debt data include Eritrea. See World Bank, World Debt Tables 1996.
7. Of course, it can also be plausibly argued that there cannot be any peace and stability in the absence of economic development. This is yet another illustration of the viciousness of the circle in which Africa is trapped.
8. It should be noted that stability has not only a country dimension, but also a sub-regional one, with one country's problems spilling over into its neighbours. Hence the need to look at sub-regional groupings such as the Horn of Africa, the Great Lakes Region, Southern Africa, etc. For an interesting discussion of regional security in Southern Africa, see Peter Vale, "Regional Security in Southern Africa", Alternatives, 21 (1996), pp.363-391.
9. Note an alternative manner of stating the choice as one between "strong" and "weak" governments: "Another way to pose the issue of policy style is to ask whether a `strong' or a `weak' government is more likely to be successful in seeing reforms to the end. These are, however, ambiguous terms. Some governments that appear strong because they issue decrees without previously building the political bases of support end up simply ineffective: the experience of Collor de Mello is the prime example. In turn, minority governments, forced to build coalitions before they can launch a reform program, may turn out to be highly successful: witness the Socialist-Social Democratic government in Portugal. To make these terms more precise, we must distinguish between constitutional constraints, which bind all governments, and the conjunctured outcomes of elections, which determine the majority or minority status of particular officeholders. A government may be `weak' in the sense of not being constitutionally enabled to make some decisions (because it must go through the legislative process, because legislation is subject to judicial review, or because some decisions are reserved for autonomous institutions, such as the central bank) or it may be `weak' politically, incapable of legislating without first persuading its own party or without building coalitions of several parties". Adam Przeworski, Sustainable Democracy (Cambridge University Press,1995), p. 83.
10. According to UNDP, participation has at least three dimensions: economic (participation in markets); political (participation in governance); and social and cultural (participation in community organizations). See UNDP, Human Development Report 1993 (Oxford University Press, 1993).
11. Quoted in The Economist, 7 September 1996, "A Survey of Sub-Saharan Africa", p.4.
12. For some, however, this is not a prospect to be dreaded. "Perhaps marginalization, so often decried, is what Africa needs right now. For one thing, it will help the evolution of an endogenous development agenda, an agenda that expresses the aspirations of the people and can therefore elicit their support". Secondly, "insofar as it leaves the development of Africa to Africans, it offers a chance of breaking out of another major development trap - the dissociation of development strategy from social experience". Ake, op.cit., p.118.
13. This is not the place for a discussion of the way out of Africa's current quandary. At any rate, there is no simple formula for the region's economic and social transformation. Even the World Bank, usually confident of its diagnoses and prescriptions, was compelled by African realities to admit that "nobody knows all the answers", and that "the process has to be one of learning from experience, and continual dialogue and updating in the face of rapidly changing realities on the ground". A Continent in Transition: Sub-Saharan Africa in the Mid-1990's (1995), p.i.
14. There are many who will find this conclusion unduly gloomy. On a personal level, I am conscious of the tension between what Antonio Gramsci called pessimism of the intelligence and optimism of the will. Reality imposes a sober view of Africa's prospects, but a refusal to accept predictions of gloom compels us to will a more optimistic outlook. A happy blend between the two is not always easy to strike.
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Eshetu Chole (1996). Means and Ends: Transcending Growth in Search of Human Development. UNICEF Eastern and Southern Africa Region Economic and Social Policy Network, Occasional Paper Number 1, Nairobi.
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