African Political Economy and The Quest for Free Market: Challenges and Prospects

Abstract

It is germane to state that communism to a market economy in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe has not gone down well in many aspects that could lead to growth and development in Africa but its movement in China and Vietnam has performed tangibly beyond expectation. Worthy to note is that Africa witnessed high level of stagnation in the beginning of the century of the post-colonial period and in recent time, there has been a competition between population and poverty reduction; the percentage in poverty has gone down, but the absolute numbers of impoverished have increased. The ostensible behind this piece is to assess the efforts of African states in their quest for achieving free market economy. This paper applied qualitative method of data collection while globalization theory was used as a basis of its analysis. The paper reveals that globalization has been a mixed blessing in this aspect as it plays an important role both in the successes and failures. It concludes that these dramatic economic events have not surprisingly been accompanied by a high level of intellectual ferment. It recommended among others that, new policies for alleviating poverty in order to ensure growth and development, such as conditional cash transfers and micro-lending as introduced be implemented to the fullest to ensure poverty is actually reduced to minimal level.