African Political Elites Research Articles

Toward an assessment of the relevance of proposed public policy in contemporary African society: A retrospective review of Kenya's now‐defunct building bridges initiative, with special reference to post‐election violence

AbstractWhereas competing interests characterize the African public policy sphere today, the lens of mass‐elite differences has hardly been employed to study electoral violence. Accordingly, this article juxtaposes the lived experiences of ordinary Kenyan citizens, obtained through focus groups, with the content of the now‐defunct Building Bridges Initiative (BBI), a comprehensive set of public policy changes proposed by Kenya's political protagonists Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga in 2017. It poses the following broad question: did the BBI proposals truly intersect with the opinions and lived experiences of the masses? I find that various factors, including the lack of electoral and judicial integrity, and a winner‐takes‐all democratic system, are responsible for post‐election violence according to citizens. A comparative analysis of citizen perspectives and the BBI Report reveals considerable congruence in the understanding of the causes of post‐election violence. The study partly concludes that African leaders should continue to engage in policy entrepreneurship.Related ArticlesHodzi, Obert. 2020. “African Political Elites and the Making(s) of the China Model in Africa.” Politics & Policy 48(5): 887–987. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12380.Kouladoum, Jean‐Claude. 2023. “The Role of Freedom of Communication in Modulating the Effect of Political Participation on Electoral Outcome in Africa.” Politics & Policy 51(4): 588–613. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12539.Onyango, Gedion. 2024. “DHR‐PA—Democracy and Human Rights in Public Administration in Africa.” Politics & Policy 52(2): 426–49. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12584.

China’s relational power in Africa: Beijing’s ‘new type of party-to-party relations’

Using a Chinese conceptualisation of social capital—Qin Yaqing’s ‘relational theory of world politics’ (i.e. ‘relationality’)—along with informal interviews and two decades of official data this study explains how and why the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (ID-CPC) is building relationships with African political elites. It shows how the department has become the institutional embodiment of relationality—the primary party organ tasked with enhancing what Qin calls China’s ‘relational power’ with like-minded political partners regardless of their ideology. The ID-CPC offers its African counterparts bilateral and multilateral ‘host diplomacy’ and ‘cadre training’ programs that share Chinese governance methods and rewards them for their praise and political support. Relationality helps explain why the ID-CPC continues to expand and deepen its relationships with African political elites, maintained them virtually during COVID-19, and quickly restarted in-person exchanges as soon as China’s pandemic travel restrictions were loosened in early 2023. The literature on social capital theory has long been based on Western experiences and notions of relationship building. Applying Qin’s distinctly Chinese conception of social capital to systematic empirical data reveal how traditional Confucian sociocultural practices continue to shape China’s contemporary international relations.

From Warlords to Politicians: Transforming Rebel Movements Into Political Parties

Over the past few decades, African countries have faced a new phenomenon in political life – the ascent to power of former warlords – leaders of insurgent anti-government movements or tribal militias, who become presidents, vice presidents, prime ministers and members of parliament. Warlords seek to translate their wartime gains into material wealth and social status and gain political office to consolidate their military exploits. To achieve this, they employ many different strategies: transforming their armed groups into political parties, joining existing political organizations, establishing totally new parties, or conducting individual political activity. In societies where power is accumulated through the expansion of social networks – political, economic, military, ethnic, religious, regional, etc. – it becomes extremely useful for a politician to play several leadership roles. Access to various networks allows leaders to expand their base of support: this partly explains why African political elites are represented not only by politicians, but also by businessmen, priests, football players and former warlords. Since most African countries since independence have been in a constant transition from authoritarian to “democratic” governance, from public sector dominance to liberal economies, from limited violence to large-scale warfare, elites have constantly had to invent new roles for themselves in order to maintain political power. If they were unable to achieve the transformation that the situation required, they risked becoming marginalized figures. In this sense, recent warlords intuitively felt it inadvisable to distance themselves from their past wartime activities. Depending on the audience and circumstances, they either emphasized their former merits as field commanders, or, on the contrary, diligently portrayed themselves as vigorous peacemakers. The literature on peacebuilding and post-war reconstruction, with rare exceptions, ignores such an important aspect as the influence of former warlords on post-conflict electoral processes, focusing almost exclusively on organizational issues, the level of effectiveness of state institutions, intra- and inter-party struggles, methods of ensuring security, and the degree of readiness of polling stations. The present paper aims at filling this gap.

The “Africa Recolonization Act”? The Politics of Pan-Africanism and Globalization in the 1990s

This article examines the conflict between two visions of Pan-Africanism and global economic integration in the late 1990s. On one side, many African political and economic elites allied with some Black leaders and groups in the United States to support legislation called the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). This article argues that AGOA represented a form of neoliberal Pan-African politics, which posited that African freedom and prosperity required embracing global capitalism. Contesting this vision were progressive nonprofits, unions, and legislators in Africa and the United States. In the United States, these groups offered an alternative trade deal—the Human Rights, Opportunity, Partnership, and Empowerment Act. This bill, in turn, articulated a social democratic Pan-Africanist worldview and a challenge to global neoliberalism.

Architecture and Development: Israeli Construction in Sub-Saharan Africa and Settler Colonial Imagination, 1958–1973 by Ayala Levin

Reviewed by: Architecture and Development: Israeli Construction in Sub-Saharan Africa and Settler Colonial Imagination, 1958–1973 by Ayala Levin Kwaku Nti Levin, Ayala. Architecture and Development: Israeli Construction in Sub-Saharan Africa and Settler Colonial Imagination, 1958–1973. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2022. Ayala Levin projects the otherwise obscure role of Israeli technical aid amid the crucial African political elite efforts in preferring other countries as alternatives to erstwhile colonial powers in the development of the built environment across the continent. This kind of collaboration that amounted to a transgression of [End Page 215] old colonial hierarchies thrived on official Israeli overtures preceding African independence much to the objection of Britain. Accordingly, Levin points out that Israeli officials offered the emerging African governments "the services of the Israeli construction company Solel Boneh, as well as those of other governmental companies … a cooperative organization established in 1920 that laid the foundation for the Israeli state's institutional infrastructure and political leadership in its first decade of statehood" (2). Levin consequently challenges prevailing understanding of development discourses as homogeneous with the technocrats thereof as incorporeal. Again, this book draws attention to oblivious issues in the broader development scholarship as the author introduces the trope of competition. She avers that "in the competition over development aid in Africa, incited by decolonization and the global Cold War, new centers of knowledge production emerged and, with them, the opportunity for African governments to negotiate with various aid donors and choose the forms of aid … the competition over aid allowed room for sophisticated maneuvering even between countries associated with the same bloc" (3). These manipulations in this increasingly competitive development market saw old and new international actors joggling with each other, tearing down colonial monopolies as the latter acted as proxies for the new superpowers or assumed independent positions per Non-Aligned Movement interventions. In this context, then, Israel as a "developing country" becomes an unrelenting major actor on the African continent. This scenario introduces another category "between the global North and the global South that complicates existing narratives of development and directs attention to the diverse social and political stakes that undergirded north-south exchanges" (3). Architecture, therefore, in the estimation of Levin, becomes a discipline that offers an unassailable possibility for the exploration of this complicated historical phenomenon. Israel, in these endeavors, developed a self-fashioned geopolitical position in its dealings with African governments, structuring its various aid offers as cooperation given their perceived shared historical experiences. All these things happened amid the subtle facilitation of Israeli interests and avowed national ideologies, both of which hardly ruled out nuanced occurrences and cases of inconsistences as well as contradictions. According to Levin, the epistemological framework for the Israeli approach to Africa hinged on Theodor Herzl's 1902 utopian novel, Altneuland. The imagined forms of knowledge production in this novel utilized the Jewish colonial experience that would prove beneficial to the [End Page 216] African continent. To this end, then, "Herzl, the visionary of political Zionism, shifted the center of colonial knowledge production from European metropoles to the Jewish settlements in Palestine" (13). At best, in application to the African continent, this knowledge comprised "labor-pioneer … and concrete in the harsh conditions of the field" (13). In putting this book together, Levin develops a conceptual framework of development theater explains the dramatization of aid among donor and recipient countries and upholds the role of what she calls architectural modernism. All these ideas are beautifully developed in five highly informative chapters with an introduction and a postscript as well as copious endnotes to boot. Chapter 1 is set in Sierra Leone, where an Israeli father–son architectural team relied on the experience of designing and building the Knesset to do the same for the parliament of this African country. As the local media highlighted the visibility of the project and the performance of labor, it equally emphasized the entire process as well as the agency of the citizenry. Aryeh Doudai's national urbanization plan, again for Sierra Leone, takes center stage in chapter 2. In this project, his redefinition of the entire country in identifying potential future urban centers in its interior, also an idea...

External Debt and Capital Flight in East Africa

Capital flight remains significant for public officials in East Africa member states, especially since the emergence of the foreign debt crisis and the associated drastic decline in capital inflows from developed nations and Bretton Woods institutions. Given their smaller resource base, debt accumulation and budget deficit, the problem of capital flight in developing nations requires examination. The study examined the effect of accumulating external debt on capital flight in East African countries that includes Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi using panel data for the period 1988 to 2018. The study was guided by the debt-overhang theory that helped to analyze the motive of fleeing capital from developing economies to developed countries as a result of foreign debt accumulation. Secondary data was sourced from World Bank and Statistical Abstract reports. Ordinary least squares technique combined with the fixed effect estimation approach was used during analysis. The fixed effect regression findings reported that external debt had a positive and significant effect on capital flight in East African countries. A substantial fraction of the borrowed funds is being captured by African political elites who in turn channel the cash abroad in form of capital flight, thus, increased capital outflow indebts citizens through increased external debt to finance public spending. From the result, the policymakers should pursue debt financing, that is, EAC states should borrow from new lenders at a relatively lower interest rate and use the proceeds from the new loan to repay the old loans to avoid the risks of external loan defaults, so as to reduce the debt effect on capital flight. Keywords: Capital Flight, External Debt, Debt Crisis, Investment, Debt-overhang Theory, Debt Financing DOI: 10.7176/JESD/13-6-04 Publication date: March 31 st 2022

Protesty społeczne a nierówności i zjawisko zawłaszczenia państwa w RPA

Abrupt social protests in South Africa, which erupted after the decision to jail the former president, Jacob Zuma, have stirred discussions on the ongoing state crisis and corruption of South African political elites. Meanwhile, these problems have deeper roots. The article argues that one of the main reasons of social unrest is a failure of a democratic state in enhancing social and economic opportunities of black South Africans and addressing the resultant increasing income and wealth inequalities. The article examines the context of the state’s erosion after it was monopolized by the African National Congress (ANC). Our arguments include the model of neopatrimonial state, related to the legacy of political transformation, but also to the departure of the ANC elites from its revolutionary ideals in favour of party loyalty. Another issue discussed in the article is a phenomenon called ‘state capture’.

ЛИБЕРАЛИЗАЦИЯ ИММИГРАЦИОННОГО ЗАКОНОДАТЕЛЬСТВА КНР СКВОЗЬ ПРИЗМУ АФРИКАНОФОБИИ

The article discusses the draft "Regulations of the People's Republic of China on the Management of Permanent Residence of Foreigners" (Exposure Draft) 2020, the adoption of which in the future will allow African students to obtain a residence permit in China. The new rules introduce concessions for foreign citizens in obtaining permanent residence, which is part of the PRC's policy of attracting highly qualified specialists. Attracting African students to the PRC is part of the “Go abroad” economic strategy. Through educational exchanges, Beijing also participates in the formation of African political and business elites, oriented not towards China. Further, the author examines the popular anti-immigrant theses of a professor at Beijing Normal University, according to whom the relaxation of immigration control will lead China to Islamization. The professor's article received a wide response in the Chinese segment of the Internet, as many Chinese people are unhappy that foreign citizens will receive more rights and privileges. Under the new Regulation, foreigners, for example, are not subject to forced family planning. A new wave of Africanophobia has risen during the COVID-19 pandemic. African migrants were discriminated against. All this is related to the problem of adaptation of African migrants, since China does not provide for institutional mechanisms to facilitate the successful integration of African migrants. The impossibility for the majority of African migrants who want to stay in China after graduation from Chinese universities and meet the listed requirements leads to their illegal status, which in turn contributes to the formation of Afro-Towns and criminal activities.

Introduction to the Special Issue: Strategic Deployment of the China Model in Africa

This introductory article examines the concept of strategic localization, which is central to the theme of this Special Issue of Politics & Policy. We focus on how African states, for regime survival and/or pragmatic reasons, reinterpret China's development discourse and preferences and implement them in their local contexts. We hypothesize that the China model of development has become a rhetorical commonplace used to legitimize policies perceived to be: (1) better for regime survival (e.g., no political conditionalities; dissemination of resources to elites); and (2) superior to other development models (more suitable for developing countries, better at developing strong states). The article will also give a synopsis of the other articles in the Special Issue—highlighting their main arguments and findings.Related Articles (in this Special Issue)Åberg, John H. S., and Derick Becker. 2020. “China as Exemplar: Justin Lin, New Structural Economics, and the Unorthodox Orthodoxy of the China Model.” Politics & Policy 48 (5).Babones, Salvatore. 2020. “China's Development Model: Can it be Replicated in Sub‐Saharan Africa?” Politics & Policy 48 (5).Hodzi, Obert. 2020. “African Political Elites and the Making(s) of the China Model in Africa.” Politics & Policy 48 (5).

China's Development Model: Can it be Replicated in Sub‐Saharan Africa?

Viewed as an economic long march from poverty to middle‐income status, China's four decades of rapid economic growth can seem little short of miraculous. Unsurprisingly, such a record is bound to inspire imitators, and China's political‐economic model of authoritarian capitalism or state‐sponsored neoliberalism has attracted many admirers in Africa. But viewed as a rapid rebound after the removal of catastrophic Maoist economic mismanagement, China's growth spurt has done little more than bring China up to the level of other semiperipheral countries in Asia, the post‐Soviet space, and Latin America. China's economy rapidly grew to a level commensurate with its state capacity, and it is now leveling out at that level. The low levels of state capacity that have historically prevented most African countries from reaching middle‐income levels of GDP per capita still prevail, and until these change, African countries will not be able to follow China into middle‐income status.Related Articles (in this Special Issue)Davidsson, Simon. 2020. “Modeling the Impact of a Model: The (Non)Relationship between China's Economic Rise and African Democracy.” Politics & Policy 48 (5).Hodzi, Obert. 2020. “African Political Elites and the Making(s) of the China Model in Africa.” Politics & Policy 48 (5).Hodzi, Obert, and John H. S. Åberg. 2020. “Introduction to the Special Issue: Strategic Deployment of the China Model in Africa.” Politics & Policy 48 (5).

African Political Elites and the Making(s) of the China Model in Africa

States in Africa are labeled “system ineffectual,” inconsequential to global politics, and lacking material and ideational capabilities to structure their foreign relations. The result is a portrayal of a passive Africa at the whims of its bilateral partners—be they China, the United States, or Russia. Contra this impolitic framing of Africa, this article explores how states in Africa are strategically shaping the norms of development paradigms promoted by foreign powers and influencing external actors to legitimize their preferred norms. Empirically focusing on China's development model in Africa, the article examines how norms related to the model are being shaped and diffused; and how through the ingenuity of political elites, China is making the China model “on the go.” The main argument is that political elites in Africa are strategically reconstructing the China model, creating their own multifaceted versions that delicately balance their own domestic interests and their bilateral relations with China while deriving maximum benefits from the People's Republic of China.Related Articles (in this Special Issue)Duggan, Niall. 2020. “China—The Champion of the Developing World: A Study of China's new Development Model and its Role in Changing Global Economic Governance.” Politics & Policy 48 (5).Ganda, Willie D. 2020. “The China Model in Zimbabwe: The Belt and Road Initiative and Beyond.” Politics & Policy 48 (5).Hodzi, Obert, and John H. S. Åberg. 2020. “Introduction to the Special Issue: Strategic Deployment of the China Model in Africa.” Politics & Policy 48 (5).

Peacekeeping Experiences as Triggers of Introspection in the Ghanaian Military Barracks

African political elites have been forthcoming with military support for United Nations peacekeeping missions, contributing substantially to these missions’ workforce. Despite their contribution, most studies on peacekeeping omit the African soldier’s voice on his experiences of the African war theatre. This article features Ghanaian soldiers’ narratives based on their peacekeeping deployments and illuminates how Ghanaian peacekeepers connect their experiences to their home society. In this contribution, I illustrate how Ghanaian soldiers’ narratives about peacekeeping experiences are framed as deterring examples for their home society, thus potentially impacting their actions and behaviours. Based on long-term qualitative research embedded with the Ghanaian military, drawing from interviews and informal conversations with peacekeeping veterans and serving military operatives, it is argued that Ghanaian soldiers’ narratives of peacekeeping experiences and the collective processes through which these narratives gain currency in the barracks and beyond are informed by introspection in the post-peacekeeping deployment phase.

Challenges and Achievements of Integration Processes in Africa in Light of the New Continental Free Trade Agreement

Eversince the African states regained their independence in the second half of the twentieth century, there has been an idea among African political elites about mutual cooperation among their independent states. The spirit of Pan-Africanism was a mainstream discourse within African political, intellectual, and cultural elites throughout the twentieth century. The Pan-African idea was soon concretized into the Organization of African Unity, which was replaced in 2002 by the African Union as we know it today. Yet, despite numerousinitiatives, monetary unions, regional economic committees, and the establishment of the African Union as an umbrella organization, the effects of African integration were not good enough. The African Union did not have the strength to impose common policies on all its members, funding remained a permanent problem, and regional economic committees were suffering from the “spaghetti bowl effect” caused by numerous overlaps in membership. Perhaps the biggest problem liesin the fact thatAfrican citizens have not been able to feel the benefits of integration, despite sporadic improvements in macroeconomic indicators. New momentum in African integration happened in the spring of 2018 with the launch of a new initiative called the African Continental Free Trade Agreement - AfCFTA. The new agreement differs from the previous agreements in the number of signatories.It has been signed by all countries of the continent (except Eritrea), and it has already been ratified by most of them. The agreement has clear implementation strategies and evaluation criteria. However, we must reexamine whether the new agreement will succeed in overcoming the obstacles that have dulled previous regional initiatives and whether it will succeed in overcoming new obstacles that will emerge in the future.

Africa’s Political Environment and the Challenge of Underdevelopment

Over the last sixty years the principal agency of underdevelopment of Africa has been the international capitalist countries. Before the advent of the Europeans in Africa, the continent had robust economic, social and political structures because it was endowed with numerous inexhaustible both human and natural resources. These were seriously disrupted by the colonialists in the course of creating wealth for themselves through the means of exploitation. It is imperative to assert that the debate on the unprecedented political decay created by African political elite (the agents of colonialists) in power has dominated the political discourse among scholars from the region. Africa’s environment has been shrouded in political violence, poor electoral system, incessant military intervention, ethnic/tribal segregation and unity in diversity, rising political cleavages resulting from multi-party system, bad political culture, corruption, alienation of African women from politics, greed and sit-back leadership, dictatorship, foreign influence, religious diversity, administrative mediocrity, secession threat resulting from marginalization of minority, and bad governance. The political instability in the sub-Saharan African States has been the function of political environment, manifesting itself as a chronic symptom of the underdevelopment of political life within the imperialist context. Political environment in the sub-Saharan African States can be explained based on the legacy of political authoritarianism inherited from the colonialists, a factor which resulted to political conflicts, instability and dictatorship. The political authoritarianism of the colonial states is a direct source of the authoritarianism that has plagued Africa. Colonialism created and shaped identities and cleavages in dysfunctional way as political centralization involves one clan dominating another. The conjunctivitis created by the underdevelopment trajectories has called for in-depth investigation into Africa’s underdevelopment in the light of political advancement of the ‘Asian Tiger’ so that efforts towards experiencing political environment with high propensity of political advancement in the sub-Saharan African States could be attained. The study intended to apply the theories of modernisation and dependency to explain Africa’s underdevelopment. Qualitative method will be utilised in the study.

Over 50 years of African statehood: Locating a new narrative for African development challenges

Background: Africa remains one of the least developed continents in the world. What remains debatable is how countries on the continent find themselves in this situation after more than 50 years of independence for most of them. Aim: This article attempts to join the debate on the crisis of development in Africa by first taking a clear departure from the common narrative of linking Africa’s development challenges largely to exogenous factors. It critically examines how to build African states’ capacity for development by first addressing prevailing politics of ‘clientelism’, ‘prebendalism’ and ‘neo-patrimonialism’ in Africa. Setting: The article holds strongly that impacts of exogenous factors have been over-romanticised and therefore there is a need to take a deeper look at how most African countries at the moment find themselves in their precarious situation. Methods: The study is qualitative in nature and relies on secondary sources of data. Results: The article locates the crisis of development in Africa within the context of the failure of African states to intervene in the process of development, which incidentally is a product of the lack of commitment to development by African political elites as well as an absence of the capacity for development by techno-bureaucratic institutions. Conclusion: The main ingredient in enhancing development of Africa is competent, meritocratic and ‘result-oriented’ techno-bureaucratic governance. Thus, for effective techno-bureaucratic governance that would generate development, commitment of state actors and capacity of the state itself are important.

African health diplomacy: obscuring power and leveraging dependency through shadow diplomacy

Health crises pose fundamental challenges to international relations and have been a major focal point of contests for global influence, particularly in the global South, where such crises are most acute. This necessitates a focus on the arenas of global health diplomacy and the power struggles that emanate from them, including the often-overlooked agency of African actors within these arenas. Drawing upon a total of 3 months of fieldwork in 2007 and 2014 that included 68 key-informant interviews, participant observations, and informal discussions, this article interrogates the mechanics of multi-stakeholder health diplomacy in Malawi, where a near-permanent state of health crisis and underdevelopment has generated extreme dependency on external health assistance. This article conceptualises shadow diplomacy as the informal networks and channels of influence that run parallel to, but are not recognised as part of, formal diplomacy. This concept reveals how health is key to struggles for leverage by both international and local actors, giving rise to informal and subversive manifestations of diplomacy in the ‘shadows’. It enables us to understand not only how Western powers consolidate and obscure their enduring power but also how the ‘shadows’ benefit African political elites as they leverage their dependency to subvert global power structures for their own ends. It disrupts the external/internal binary of international donors/African states and reveals that these are not monolithic actors but instead comprising complex individuals with multi-faceted motivations and divided loyalties.

Social mobility among Christian Africans: evidence from Anglican marriage registers in Uganda, 1895–2011

AbstractThis article uses Anglican marriage registers from colonial and post‐colonial Uganda to investigate long‐term trends and determinants of intergenerational social mobility and colonial elite formation among Christian African men. It shows that the colonial era opened up new labour opportunities for these African converts, enabling them to take large steps up the social ladder regardless of their social origin. Contrary to the widespread belief that British indirect rule perpetuated the power of African political elites (chiefs), this article shows that a remarkably fluid colonial labour economy actually undermined their social advantages. Sons of chiefs gradually lost their high social‐status monopoly to a new, commercially orientated, and well‐educated class of Anglican Ugandans, who mostly came from non‐elite and sometimes even lower‐class backgrounds. The study also documents that the colonial administration and the Anglican mission functioned as key steps on the ladder to upward mobility. Mission education helped provide the skills and social reference needed to climb the ladder in exchange for compliance with the laws of the Anglican Church. These social mobility patterns persisted throughout the post‐colonial era, despite rising levels of informal labour during Idi Amin's dictatorship.

China and Africa: economic growth and a non-transformative political elite

ABSTRACTPrevailing narratives in the discourse on China-Africa engagement are that China is developing Africa. This paper departs from those narratives because they disregard the agency of Africa's political elite. Basing its argument on the nature of the African political elite, the paper analyses their role in determining the impact of China's economic and trade engagement on economic development in their respective countries. To do that, it first discusses the nature and identity of African political elites, and examines how they control their states and scarce resources. Having done that, the paper then analyses their role in determining the nature and extent of development emanating from their countries’ economic engagement with China. It then concludes that it is not how much foreign states invest in African countries that determines Africa's rise, but rather political elites who influence the direction of their states’ development.

The Impact of Structural Adjustment Programmes on West Africa: The Die is Cast!

22 | International Union Rights | 24/1 FOCUS | WORLD BANK AND IMF The end of the Second World War did not just open the window for Bretton Woods’ neo-liberal economic agenda. It also coincided with an aeon of nationalistic consciousness and fight for selfdetermination . Africa was a major theatre of this struggle. By 1960, scores of African countries had their independence. The challenge of setting the continent on a path of socio-economic freedom became the lot of the first generation post-colonial African leaders. The failure of African leaders to apply themselves to the visionary burden, originality and discipline of modern state craft added to the problems of dislocated and neo-colonial economic arrangements handed to the new independent countries. Given the mismanagement of the economies of African states through corruption, nepotism and the coronation of rent-seeking economic models, worsened by craze for exotic goods, it was only a matter of time before African political elite ran the continent into a cul-de-sac. It took about twenty years, post independence, for many West African countries to accept IMF and World Bank “conditionalities” of Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAP). Organised labour, the student movement and progressive branch of civil society became buffers against SAPs. The reasons are not far-fetched. IMF conditions for granting loans included wage constriction, employment freeze, privatisation of public concerns and workforce rationalisation. This forced organised labour and its allies to resist SAP for more than four decades. The Harsh Realities of Neo-liberal Policies Many West African countries were forced by the blackmail of foreign indebtedness and local socioeconomic upheavals to accept structural adjustment as preconditions for accessing loans, grants and so called developmental aid from IMF and World Bank. As public enterprises were shut down or privatised at cheap rates to cronies of African leaders and their collaborators in the West, the capacity of many West African countries to sustain productivity was destroyed. The de-industrialisation of postindependence Africa had begun in earnest. Joseph Stiglitz, a former World Bank Chief Economist, described the SAP-induced privatisation regime as “briberisation”. That was the intention of structural adjustment – to stagnate African countries at the exact point of colonial ruin where Africa was reduced to a mere exporter of cheap raw materials. The strategy worked perfectly well. African countries continued to export its raw materials at ridiculously cheap prices, that were determined by western imperialists hiding under the camouflage of SAPs. Furthermore, IMF’s SAPs imposed a regime of currency devaluation, removal of trade and investment restrictions, withdrawal of subsidies on essential public goods and services, retrenchment of the workforce and deep budgetary cutbacks on social services which were substituted with high user costs. These user costs pre-conditioned public access to healthcare, education and water supply. Akpan Ekpo argues that instead of putting ailing economies on the path to recovery, sustained growth and development, IMF/World Bank’s SAPs imploded into economic strangulation marked by hyperinflation , mass unemployment, evaporation of essential goods cum social services, deterioration in standards of living and widespread social tensions1. Research conducted on the development performance of six selected West African countries Cote d’lvoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo - during the period of structural adjustment shows that they all degenerated into serious economic decline, political chaos and social unrest. The only sunny side to SAPs was some upswing in foreign exports. Ironically, as foreign exports increased, local implosions escalated. The truth is that the much-touted SAP objective of expanding exports and local investment for economic turn-around turned out to be a mirage. Research findings show discouraging assessments against classical measures of economic performance and adverse political cum social consequences of adjustment in the six countries. Statistics show that GDP grew reasonably for all six countries before SAPs (1965-80), but the adjustment period (1979/80-87) recorded discouraging indices of production. For the period 1961-80, GDP for Cote d’lvoire grew by 6.8% but declined to 2.2% during the period 1980-87. For Nigeria, a GDP growth rate of 6.9% pre-adjustment drastically reduced to a negative growth rate of 1.7% following adjustment. Agricultural production during adjustment declined for all countries...

A seat at the table: African youth demand a say

Ask members of the African political elite, civil society activists or anyone else about the role of youth in national development and you will hear a lot of profound, if trite, catchphrases, such as “The youth are the future; they are the leaders of tomorrow.” African leaders even declared 2009–18 the African Youth Decade. Before that, in 2006, they adopted the African Youth Charter, with one of the goals being to lure younger people into participating in political debates and decision-making processes.