Neoliberal Policies As A Path Towards Economic Recovery In Sub Saharan African Countries

Essay from the year 2002 in the subject Politics - Region: Africa, grade: 8,0 von max 10, University of Amsterdam (FMG), language: English, abstract: As a participant of the course ‘Abandoning Development: Africa and the Contemporary Economic International Political-Economic System I am asked to write a final paper about an issue that was dealt with in the course and which is also based on the literature, that was provided. Since I am a Political Science student, who specialized in International Relations, I deliberately chose the course mentioned above to learn about the global economicpolitical system and its impact on whole regions. The case of Africa, in particular of Sub Saharan Africa, provides the participant with some understanding of the relationship between the developed and the developing countries, it’s inequalities, dependencies and perspectives, that I came across in other subjects like International relations, International Political Economy, the Political economy of the Middle East, etc. In that sense I feel that this case of an entire unprivileged region, like Sub Sahara Africa, fits into that context which I have already studied. At the international level, the fate of Sub Saharan African countries is highly relevant not just for its 45 countries hosting 500 million people. The De-humanization of Africa, as Manuel Castells refers to, goes in line with the rise of information/global capitalism by the beginning of seventies in the last century. Consequently many of its states disintegrated, societies collapsed, causing famine, epidemics, civil war, and social/political chaos. If one perceives these deteriorating developments as structurally conditioned then one can easily see the link to the global economic system and imagine the consequences, leading to several scenarios that the global community will have to deal with. But rather than developing these scenarios, this paper deals with the issue, whether recent policies and tools to ameliorate the economic situation of many African countries are suitable and eventually led to improvement in economic and social terms. Since the early eighties neoliberal policies were introduced by US-president Reagan and the UK-Prime minister Margaret Thatcher. [...]

The period since the 1980s has seen sustained pressure on Africa’s political elite to anchor the continent’s development strategies in neoliberalism in exchange for vitally needed development assistance. Rafts of policies and programmes have come to underpin the relationship between continental governments and the donor communities of the West and particularly their institutions of global governance – the International Financial Institutions. Over time, these policies and programmes have sought to transform the authority and capacity of the state to effect social, political and economic change, while opening up the domestic space for transnational capital and ideas. The outcome is a continent now more open to international capital, export-oriented and liberal in its political governance. Has neoliberalism finally arrested under development in Africa? Bringing together leading researchers and analysts to examine key questions from a multidisciplinary perspective, this book involves a fundamental departure from orthodox analysis which often predicates colonialism as the referent object. Here, three decades of neoliberalism with its complex social and economic philosophy are given primacy. With the changed focus, an elucidation of the relationship between global development and local changes is examined through a myriad of pressing contemporary issues to offer a critical multi-disciplinary appraisal of challenge and change in Africa over the past three decades.

Since the 1970s, neoliberalism has evolved from ideology to political programme, from political programme to public policy, and from public policy to constitutional rule. This process of change has been made possible through the endorsement of an uncritical, a-historical, and apolitical economic theory that legitimized technocratic despotism, financial deregulation, precarious labour, and constitutional-political emptying. This book examines critical perspectives in mainstream neoliberal development analysis. It examines the neoliberal experiment as a global historical construct through the cases of Africa, Latin America, and Europe. The analysis begins in 1980 with the Structural Adjustment Plans in Latin America and Africa, followed in 1990 by Maastricht in the case of Europe and the euphoric shift that took place, typified by the Africa Rising narrative, which attempts to promote the idea of an economically emerging continent. It also considers the weakness of the state resulting from neo-liberal austerity and fiscal stabilization policies, which have amplified the inability to collectively deal with the social, economic, and political impact of the COVID-19 crisis. One of the key features of the book is the extensive comparative analysis between regions, using case studies, including examples from African countries. The authors connect the different regional perspectives, included in the book, in a clear and coherent way, such that it will appeal to students and scholars interested in the social, economic, and political outcomes of globalization and will also be of interest to official development agencies and third sector organizations in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe.

Despite the rhetoric, the people of Sub-Saharan Africa are become poorer. From Tony Blair's Africa Commission and the Make Poverty History campaign to the Hong Kong WTO meeting, Africa's gains have been mainly limited to public relations. The central problems remain exploitative debt and financial relationships with the North, phantom aid, unfair trade, distorted investment and the continent's brain/skills drain. Moreover, capitalism in most African countries has witnessed the emergence of excessively powerful ruling elites with incomes derived from financial-parasitical accumulation. Without overstressing the 'mistakes' of such elites, this book contextualises Africa's wealth outflow within a stagnant but volatile world economy.

DIVA collection of Ferguson's essays that bring the question of Africa into the center of current debates on globalization, modernity, and emerging forms of world order./div

Our Continent, Our Future presents the emerging African perspective on this complex issue. The authors use as background their own extensive experience and a collection of 30 individual studies, 25 of which were from African economists, to summarize this African perspective and articulate a path for the future. They underscore the need to be sensitive to each country's unique history and current condition. They argue for a broader policy agenda and for a much more active role for the state within what is largely a market economy. Finally, they stress that Africa must, and can, compete in an increasingly globalized world and, perhaps most importantly, that Africans must assume the leading role in defining the continent's development agenda.

This book maps the process and political economy of policy making in Africa. It's focus on trade and industrial policy makes it unique and it will appeal to students and academics in economics, political economy, political science and African studies. Detailed case studies help the reader to understand how the process and motivation behind policy decisions can vary from country to country depending on the form of government, ethnicity and nationality and other social factors.

Francis Frimpong argues that the exponential growth of finance and credit infrastructures in Ghana did not alleviate poverty in the country. It has, however, resulted in rising financial profits, financialising poverty and stagnating the real sector of the economy