Customer Reviews

Our Continent, Our Future: African Perspectives on Structural Adjustment

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A key to understanding the condition of African economics rather than accepting the prescribed solutions the west imposes on the continent. Through their own experiences and scientific studies on the continent the authors have come up with prescriptions and diagnosis very different from the imposed structural adjustments theories that have proven to be failures. A very refreshing reading indeed.

Must reading for anyone concerned to understand African development strategies. Particularly recommended for those involved in the debate about trade and new U.S. policies towards Africa. Written as a synthesis of work by leading African social scientists, this book is concise, clear, non-rhetorical and solidly based on empirical work. It not only provides a devastating critique of standard "structural adjustment" models, but also lays out an alternative strategy for African-directed growth and development. -- William Minter, Senior Research Fellow, Africa Policy Information Center

Soludo and Mkandiwire are two excellent Economist and have compiled a number of astute observations on African Developmental strategies. I do think that there are a few oversights and understatements however. Their prescriptions for Africa to be able to compete in a Capitalist society dominated by Western Nations is a little myopic. Africa is a repository of minerals and goods for these Western Nations, this in mind, one can conclude that those very same Nations will do every and anything under the Sun to ensure that Africa remains in the state it's been in for the last 500 years. Africa must continue to search for alternative and imaginative economic models in order to survive. Although the authors explication of External Market Shocks' disruption of the African economy, they failed to grasp what the Pan Africanist have been exhorting for over a century and that is a market for Africa already exist. It's Black Americans, Black South Americans and West Indians. One reason for the lack of organizational producer / consumer relationship necessary between the Continent and the Diaspora is psychological but that's another book. I would posit that if Africans were to develop an internal market, not only would we be able to cushion ourselves against the above mentioned External Market Shocks but trade relations with other developing and 'Leftist Countries' would be instrumental in not only our growth but the subsequent dismantling of a maleficent Global Capitalist system. It is a good book, I just have a few philosophical differences.