Drawing on successful experiences, this book seeks to identify, what has and has not worked in stuctural adjustment programmes in Africa, to explain key weaknesses, and to put forward feasible alternatives. It rejects excessive pessimism over Africa's future as well as excessive hype about the power and potential of foreign direct investment as an agient of change. It argues for policies which stimulate private domestic investment and link it to export expansion and upragding, and for a supportive international environment which includes debt relief, improved development assistance and better market access.

"The book is a refreshing input in a renewed debate that has tended to be dominated by a defeating chorus of orthodoxies." Dr. Kwesi Bothcwey, director, Africa Research and Programs Center for International Development, harvard Univesity

"A sound, balanced and hopeful analysis of Africa's economic future ... Essential reading for Africa's policy-makers." Professor Gerry Helleiner, Professor Emeritus Department of Economics, Unviresity of Toronto

"UNCTAD is on solid ground in demonstrating precisely where the structural adjustment paradigm fell short. There are good ideas here for African policy-makers and their development partners to draw upon in charting the way out of the low economic growth syndrome in Africa in the coming years." Ambassador Vijay S. Makhan, Assistant Secretary General Organisation of African Unity / Afircan Economic Community

"This book is an important contribution to the essential task of setting the record straight. It is recommended reading for both policy makers and scholars seeking to promote sustainable economic development on the continent." Thandika Mkandawire, Director of UNRISD (United nations Research Institute for Social Development), former Executive Secretary of CODESRIA (Council for the Development of Economic and social Research in Africa)

"This volume is a fresh and hightly welcome remicnder of the need to situate recent African economic trends in a proper historical context, recognising the improtant lessons of the relaively successful period from the mid-1960s to the early 1970's. The empirical and historical approach provides instrucitive technical and politico-economic insights for improved economic management in the coming decade and beyond." Delphin g. Rwegasira, Excecutive Dirctor, African Economic Reserach Consoritum

CATEGORY

Development Studies, Economics