Le développement du secteur privé en Afrique subsaharienne : transfert d’une norme entre l’Europe et les pays ACP (1985-1990)

Abstract

Since the late 1980s, European cooperation policies have included an increasing number of “private sector development” programs in the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. Among other things, these programs targeted the promotion of entrepreneurial culture, business support measures, improving the business environment and openness to global trade. Examining the mechanisms whereby an international norm emerged, circulated and was transferred allows one to consider official and unofficial strategies of influence and political principle legitimation – in this instance, strategies formulated in Brussels and applied in the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. The OECD, EEC, World Bank and the countries of the African, Caribbean, Pacific Group of States (ACP) were all parties to this game. Yet the actors of ACP countries played little role in the emergence and circulation of this norm. Instead, American institutional “go-betweens”, publications and conferences occupied a preponderant place in this process. Piloted by the economic and political institutions of the North for implementation in the “countries of the South”, liberalization does not appear to have been the result of a joint EEC-ACP decision.