A future for Africa

Africa's societies and their economies are in crisis with mounting external debts and falling incomes leading to collapsing infrastructure, more widespread disease, illiteracy, malnourishment adn social conflict. The text argues that the problenms are not insuperable, but that whereas their causes are largely external, the only long-term solutions rest in African hands. The author shows that the adjustment programmes imposed by the World Bank and the IMF on many African countries have compounded the disastrous impact that foreign debt, trade restrictions and falling export prices have had. With the threats of proposed changes in the structure of world trade, they ammount to the virtual recolonization of much of the continent and offer its people little hope. To the contrary real development will only be achieved through long-term strategies appropriate to African circumstances, which return control of its abundant resources to Africans themselves and which ensure greater democracy and accountability in African political structures. The author is a member of the Economic Commission for Africa and Chair of the Institute for African Affairs.