Suchergebnisse

The publication of a two-volume evaluation study, Adjustment in Africa, by the World Bank in 1994 sparked a major debate about the direction of Africa`s development. For most African scholars, who live in these economies, the World Bank reports represented yet another major disparity between reality and dogma. AFRICAN VOICES is a response to the need for the critical appraisal of the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) as a development strategy. The failure of SAP, the simplistic diagnosis and tendentious performance evaluation of the 1994 report, and the greater permissiveness of alternative viewpoints in contemporary African thought, has convinced Africans to re-enter the debate. There is a growing call for "local ownership" of adjustment and for Africans to reclaim the initiative, providing a framework for thinking itself out of the current economic crisis. With this in mind, around thirty studies were commissioned to analyse the various policies under SAP from the perspective of development as economic growth, structural change, and the elimination of poverty. The results of the studies were presented at two research workshops in Abidjan in 1996.