MADS 701
• THEORIES AND STRATEGIES IN
DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE
• BY
• PERCYSLAGE CHIGORA
THE ARGUMENT
• Ethical arguments- moralist- dealing with
what aught to be, and employing
rationalistic, deductive method
• . Speculative arguments-consisting of
imaginatives construction of ideal and
utopian states
• . Empirical argument- deals with practical
realities what is
3.
• Scientific argument-seeking to extract
generalisations, trends and laws from data
gathered by observation, measurement and
analysis.
• . Predictive arguments- about what is going to
become based on data at hand. Which is difficult
in the field of development studies as the
environment is not static as well as human
behavior which is always difficult to predict
4.
In understanding theory one should be able to
comprehend issues of
1. capital-theory aught to fall or stand on the merits
of the written texts itself.
2. Lost laundary list- what has been lost is of no
importance(do not waste time looking for them)
debates on the exiistence of god, nature of man
3. There is no need to compare theories but in real
terms arrive at conclusion about reality.
5
• 4. nothing new under the sun- there is nothing like
original in the real world- intergrating thinkings
and come up with logical presentations and
conclusions.
• 5. meaninful representations- significance lies in
the mind of the reader rather than actual motives
of its author.
• 6. Representative reflections- represent thoughts
of the author, of a particular time- plato, aristitle
etc.
• 7. influential intellects-action precedes theory.
6.
• Our preoccupation with the scientific method
aught to be approached with caution
• . involves abstraction
• SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION IS NEVER
COMPLETE
• Conclusion are never final sciences have limited
scope
• Superstitions and charished belifies have a central
role
7
• Formal procedures are fruitless
• Scientific judgment is difficult and
sometimes impossible when situations
demand immediate action
• Societal limitation- freedom of speech
• Not all areas are experimentable
• Existence of established opinions/taboos
• No scientific method guarantees certainity
8
• What are the difficulties
• 1. human behaviour is so complicated, subtle and
varied due to which it is difficult to categorize
(wife, boyfriend, son , house worker, even non
living thing) in essence we are depended on trust
and it is trust that is the source of all problems.
Success is by mear luck or continous calculations
that are free of error
• 2. the studier has a tenden dency of taking
personal consideration and distorts the analytical;
facts to his or her favour
9
• Different aspects of human behaviour are
psychological in nature and, as such are incapable
of measurement. (Christian to non Christian,
prostitute to non prostitute
• Human behaviuor is not uniform and predictable.
All people do not behave in the same way in
similar circumstances (environmentally
determined e.g. wife and husband.
• The choice or decision involving human beings is
difficult oftenly unreliableS
10
• Aspect that gives problems
• LAW- is divide into 2 Natural law and positive
law
• Positive law is divided into 2- municipal and
international;
• Municipal is divided into 2 ordinary and
constitutional law
• Ordinary is divide into 2- private and public
• Public is divided into 3, civil, criminal,
administarative
11
• Rights are divide into 3- liberty, equality and
fraternity.
• Fraternity- right to education, public assistance
and public employment
• Equality-right to be treated equally as others
• Liberty is divided into 3- civil, political and
economic
• Civil liberty is further divided into
personal,political,economic,domestic, national,
international
12 Main subject, the CONCLUSION
• Development by whom? For whom?
• Dominant ideologies of development
• Exploring the relationship among
development AND impoverishment.
3
• Development is multi-dimensional concept. Even
if you concentrate on some aspect of it- for
example economic development- there are a
number of dimensions which must be taken into
account.
• A six criteria of development as structural change
• 1. Capability of a given society to use its resources
of land, minerals, and man power to feed its own
people- indicator- food sufficiency.
4
• 2. Given country is capable to produce and
make available to farmers/peasants the basic
tools needed in food production, or in
countries with lack of arable land, the tools
needed in other production necessary for the
importation of food.
5
• 3. There is, or emerges through consent or
struggle, a set of shared transaction rules
regulating relationships between the main
actors involved in economic or other
important social activities, and accepted by
the majority as legally and/or morally
binding
6
• 4. Without indigenous entrepreneurs and
labour there is no further development.
• 5.A development of export/import
relationships but with a reasonably balanced
transaction of this trade so as to avoid too
much of ‘unequal exchange’ is another
ctiterion.
7
• 6. Growth of a considerable measure of
autonomy, self rule and democracy is
required in a given national, or other
political unit in order for it to qualify as
clearly developing or developed. A country
is therefore not developing, or may even be
defined as hindered in its development
process, if it turns out to be a colony, or a
country whose economy
8
• and politics is overwhelmingly determined
by by donor countries, or by outside
agencies such as the World Bank (WB) or
the IMF which, for instance may impose
‘structural conditionalities’ on that country
to make it eligible for further loans.
9
1. There is need to examine the contemporary
challenges to include politicisation of aid, the
war on terror, neo liberal economic policies and
the clash between universal human rights
standards and specific cultural norms.
10
• 1.
"In the past three decades, philosophers -especially African-born who are trained in Western
philosophy -- have engaged in a metaphilosophical
debate over whether there exists an African philosophy
and, if so, what its nature is.
• 2.
This debate regarding the nature and existence
of African philosophy has culminated in two camps,
which I shall call the universalists and the particularists.
11
• 1.
universalists argues that the concept of
'philosophy', in terms of the methodology and
subject matter of the discipline, should be the same
in both the Western and African senses.
• 2.
anti-universalists or the nationalists, argues
that different cultures have different ways of
explaining reality; hence Africans must have a
philosophy that is essentially different from other
philosophies.
12
However, it is my view that there are both universalist
and particularist elements in African philosophy. In other
words, although there are culturally determined
philosophical ways of constructing meaning, these ways
are not incommensurable. As such, we can use the
'known' universal (?) philosophical concepts and
methods of one 'culture' to analyse and make
understandable the philosophical beliefs and
worldviews of another culture that may 'appear' arcane and this, in my view, is what many of the particularists
have tried to do with African worldviews.
13
• Development Strategies

Diversification of Industrial Base
•o
Reduce reliance on single
commodity
•o
Import substitution
•o
Schumacher's intermediate
technology
14

•o
•o
•o
•o
•o
•o
Agricultural Development
Property Rights
International Agreements
Land Reform
Productivity Improvements
Abolition of Price Controls
Trade Liberalisation
15

Free Market Strategies
•o
Improve the efficiency of price signals
•o
Improve competitiveness of markets
•o
Improve efficiency of capital and labour
•o
Problems of market failure
§Pollution
§Environmental Degradation
§Public goods/merit goods
16
•

•o
•o
Structural Change
Lewis Two-Sector Model
Structural Adjustment Policies
• Cancellation of international debt
701.17

Trade Strategies
•o
Outward looking
§Reducing the levels of protection
§Encouraging investment flows
§Publicising the country's trade and goods
§Economies of scale
• Competition stimulates efficiency
701.18
•o
Inward looking
§Erect protective barriers
§Subsidise domestic producers
§Import substitution
19

•o
Population Control
Reduce dependency ratio

•o
•o
Encourage Savings and Investment
Harrod-Domar
Foreign Direct Investment
41
• Fundamentalism
• The first task is to define the word "fundamentalism". The
term is commonly used in newspapers, television
newscasts, backyard arguments, and above all in churches,
both in negative and positive ways. The word means
different things to different persons. I suggest that it is best
to distinguish small "f" from capital "F" usages:
fundamentalism as a generic or worldwide phenomenon
versus Fundamentalism as a religious movement specific to
Protestant culture in the United States in the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries.
42
• Generic fundamentalism refers to a global religious
impulse, particularly evident in the twentieth century,
that seeks to recover and publicly institutionalize
aspects of the past that modern life has obscured. It
typically sees the secular state as the primary enemy,
for the latter is more interested in education, democratic
reforms, and economic progress than in preserving the
spiritual dimension of life. Generic fundamentalism
takes its cues from a sacred text that stands above
criticism. It sees time-honored social distinctions and cultural patterns
as rooted in the very nature of things, in the order of creation itself.
43
• Historic Fundamentalism shared all of the
assumptions of generic fundamentalism but also
reflected several concerns particular to the religious
setting of the United States at the turn of the century.
Some of those concerns stemmed from broad changes
in the culture such as growing awareness of world
religions, the teaching of human evolution and, above
all, the rise of biblical higher criticism. The last proved
particularly troubling because it implied the absence of
the supernatural and the purely human authorship of
scripture.
44
• Fundamentalists fought these changes on several
fronts. Intellectually they mounted a strenuous defense
of the fundamentals (as they defined them) of historic
Christian teachings. Thus they insisted upon the
necessity of a conversion experience through faith in
Jesus Christ alone, the accuracy of the Bible in matters
of science and history as well as theology, and the
imminent physical return of Christ to the earth where he
would establish a millennial reign of peace and
righteousness.
45 aid and development
• Aid denoted the transfer of goods and
services between international actors on a
concessionary basis.
• it is a general term that covers both grants
and loans, bilateral and multilateral both
governmental and private it excludes
specifically commercial transactions were
the makes no concessions
46
• Aid is disbursed in variety of forms e.g
project aid, cash aid, capital aid and trade
and investment, concessions and credits.
• Oftenly aid categories and objectives
overlap exacerbating the difficulty neat
conceptual definitions and explanation in
several social science disciplines
47
• Too often researchers have tended to pay
too much attention to the publicized
progressed economic and humanitarian
objectives of aid and the expense of subtle
less forcefully articulated but significant
political motives.
48
• It should be noted that foreign aid was born
out of the political and ideological rivalry,
the primacy of politics should have
pervaded the analysis.
• Hyter and Payer have seen aid for what
exactly is ‘merely the smooth face of
imperialism’
49
• Origins and objectives of aid can only be
understood within the global political context.
This context include cold war, hostility and super
power divisions or the globe into first and 3rd
Worlds after WW1. Since all politics is the
struggle for power- major post war powers used
aid as one of their principal economic instruments
to impress and win over the uncommitted Third
nation-states to their ideological side.
50
• This role is aptly captured by Liska’s
statement that ‘foreign aid is an instrument
of foreign policy’ The US 1961 Foreign
Assistance Act openly agreed to this when
its preamble stated that its purpose was to
promote ‘the foreign policy and general
warfare of the US’
51
• Scholars like Hans Morgenthau have equated this
practice to bribery. The west initially used the aid
to buttress resistance to commit military of
subversive aggression and was gradually extended
to reward friends and punish enemies, gain
influence over forceful governments in the south,
retain influence once achieved and preventing
communist donors from succeeding.
52
• However, there is no historical evidence to
suggest that over long periods of time donor
nations assist others without expecting some
corresponding benefits (political, economic,
military and in return)
53
56 Africa development
• Since 1955 to 1990 approaches for Africa’s
development have shifted from those emphasising
trickle down of mordenising impacts from
progressive elites to the common man, those
emphasising the basic needs strategy, the small is
beautiful and finally those emphasising the
concept of enabling environment, with emphasis
on growth, management, equity or participation.
57
• Neo-liberal doctrines have never gained a
significant foothold among African social scientist
and until recently neo-Marxist approaches seem to
have had a significant impact among them.The
collapse of the eastern European real socialism
and the debacle of command economies imply that
there is no longer a God father to support and
underpin the analysis and thoughts of Marxist
development theories.
58
• There are signs of the resurgence of the old
mordenisation paradigm; and some aspects
of the neo-liberal doctrine based on neoclassical economics are often fond in
reference with benefits of market economy
being reiterated.
59
• There is also growing concern about
democratisation of African politics, and
about the meaning of democracy in the
African context. The debate draws insights
from European and North American
democracies, and this seems to witness the
resurgence of Mordenisation theory
60
• It is not enough to take a lead of western
theoretical approaches, or to simply criticise
and discard them. African social scientist
have their task of their own quite apart
from what can be discarded or gained from
outside.
61
• We refuse to accept the notion that old
mordenisation paradigms, and neo-liberal
notions of market mechanism can emerge
again without any changes whatsoever. If it
reappears among African social scientist it
must be a notion of mordenisation quite
different from the concept of westernisation
in every respect which was dominant in old
mordenisation paradigm
62
• Such new mordenisation approach must come to
terms with questions of how we should increase
the efficacy of food production and other types of
productive enterprise geared to supply domestic
African markets. Domestic markets for mass
consumption goods must be given priority and
export markets come next. We must specify what
kinds of markets are conducive to what kind of
development.
63
• Terms African and Western are often used in
African establishments in a most opportunistic
manner to defend repression, ill-gotten wealth and
unwarranted privileges. Western thoughts and
practices should be scrutinised and evaluated from
the vantage points of African predicament, but as a
result of such scrutiny we find it less necessary to
neglect or reject western thought in some cases
than to supplement it with notions acquired from
African experience.
64
• African literature- novels, biographies, short
stories and essays should be used to
enlighten social scientist about the
predicament which should be the starting
point for the efforts of the social scientist to
recognise significant social problems in the
first place, and to understand and explain
and suggest ways of overcoming barriers to
profound social change.
65
• By contrast African societies are more complex
and composite nature than western societies There
is the emergence of bourgeoisie in Africa and an
increased number of white collar employees but
the great majority are peasant and a small number
of Latifudia who employ farm laborers. An
industrial working class is emerging living in poor
conditions with much inequality between them
and entrepreneurial bourgeoisie /or the ruling
class.
66
•
•
•
•
•
Triple heritage has since emergedIndigenous cultures
Christian culture
Islamic culture
This pose a challenge to African social scientists
to think anew for themselves, and develop
concepts not only to reflect the various facets of
society of this complexity, but to conceptualise the
relationships between the facets of society, and the
dynamics or dialectics involved. (the western ss
will have to learn from us)
67
• What Africa has to learn from historical examples
• 1. Previous lack of development is not a
permanent feature of any society.
• 2. Africa has an advantage of borrowing and
further develop technologies of the West
• 3. Stagnation is as a result of the cultural, human
and economic costs involved in maintaining the
expensive life styles, and the costly secret
service/police defending interest of elites, thereby
withholding the much needed resources for social,
technological and economic development.
68
• The ruling class/elites in Africa in many
African countries do not have an ancient
civilisation to to defend, only a costly and
corrupt life style which contributes to
stifling the productive and distributive
investments needed for economic and social
development.
69
• Should African social science be different
from contemporary western social science?
• YES
• This does not mean discarding it completely
but it that western social science with all its
insights and knowledge is insufficient for an
analysis, understanding and explanation of
African conditions, present and future
70
• African social scientists can certainly learn
a great deal from the manner in which
western social science is conducted, but a
more broader and more complex set of
objects of knowledge- structural elements as
well as processes of change- must be
studied by African social scientists to
supplement whatever western social science
offer.
71
• It is imperative to note what nearly four
centuries of trans-Atlantic slave trade, and
later colonialism, has implied for the
‘development’ and ‘underdevelopment’ of
African societies. The Slave trade of course
implied gigantic demographic drain on
African populations.
72
• The main long-term effects on African societies
were a brutalization and demoralization of human
relations, and the implicit breakdown of fair
transaction rules, and ensuing social
disintegration.
• The history of colonialism also left its imprint on
African societies, and not only amplifying some of
the politically and morally destructive effects of
the previous slave trade .
73
• The lack of significant and needed
improvements in the capacity of colonized
territories to solve problems of mass
survival in response to population in crease,
and in response to the rising expectations
which were the results of exposure to the
changes in the rest of the world.
74
• The interruption of otherwise natural
improvements of indigenous
entrepreneurship and mercantile capabilities
as a result of the fact that such
entrepreneurship and mercantile endeavours
were virtually monopolized by by the
colonialists.
75
• International trade became geared to the
satisfaction of overseas metropoles rather than to
the needs of indigenous populations of colonised
territories.
• Long term discontinuation of of self-grown
improvements and struggle for greater political
autonomy and democratic self rule is by definition
a basic attribute of colonialism.
76
• The lack of an entrepreneurial or merchant
national bourgeoisie – would seem to have
played a crucial role in disfiguring the
potentially democratic political and
administrative structures which many
African countries borrowed from Europe at
independence.
77
• Europeans were infact superior to Africans
in at least three respects already at the time
of the first European-African encounters –
that is in ship-building and related ‘woodtechnology’, in the military technology of
violent destruction, and in the use of written
language.
78
• Climatic conditions particularly in the
north, compelled Europeans to develop
more advanced types of shelter and
buildings.
79
• The real question before us today in Africa,
according to Mamdani, is not of capitalism
or socialism: ‘It is instead, of the reform of
the archaic structures that are blocking the
development of the peasant productivity.
80
• A return to a consistent and effective market
is often assumed to imply a privatisation of
parastatal corporations to reap the assumed
benefits of capitalist enterprises selling their
products in an open market. We can
certainly find parastatal corporations which
perform very bureaucratically, and badly,
and which might improve with
privatisation.
81
• Parastatal corporations could possibly make
their most important contribution by
launching production in areas which are
lagging, and which do not provide sufficient
incentives for private investments.
82
• Unfortunately the kind of economics to whom
IMF/WB have been listening most of the time
have demonstrated very little sense for such
empirical research. The are convinced by abstract
neo-classical economic models that all good things
will happen – including the emergence of a truly
enterprising bourgeoisie – if only a ‘freeing of
markets’ is brought about thereby setting the ‘right
prices’ for every commodity and service.
83
• The further development of a market
economy, whether oriented toward domestic
or international markets, will generate
social class differences, and some class
struggle in Africa just as has done in
Europe, and North America.
84
• It is an open question as to how parastatal
corporations, domestic private capital, and
international capital will respond to such
aspects of class development in Africa –
particularly in countries with a very high
inflation rate.
85
• It has been maintained (Karkstrom 1991)
that an improved international trade, helped
by the removal of custom duties in
industrialised countries could furnish an
income to African countries comparable to
the amounts presently received as donor aid.
86
• But again and again it must be reiterated
that international trade as such, that is
without a previous establishment of a vital
domestic market, contributes little to
genuine development among common
people in African societies and in fact may
impede development if pursued without the
existence of such vital domestic markets.
87
• Unfortunately, historically generated conditions
are much too different in different African
countries to enable us to give definite answers to
the question how a full-fledged democracy is to be
achieved for every country. Western experiences,
and ideological predilections for multi-party
democracy can certainly tell us what is desirable
in what seems to be a universalistic language; but
the political universe taken into account in
Western political theory does not always include
the African universe.
88
• Aid is also much needed for budding
indigenously entrepreneurial efforts, and for
road building, water, sewage disposal,
health services educational and academic
research, hopefully through less corrupt
intermediaries than some African
governments.
89
• Accounting for the size and location of corruption
can be significantly reduced, thus allowing donor
money to reach its intended destinations, should
be the main conditionality for aid in the future.
Several of the conditionalities now being imposed
by aid donors, and by the IMF/WB, are in fact
questionable, and much less important than the
condition that corruption is eradicated.
90
• Although the dependency/world-system
perspective aspires to replace modernisation
theories and actually, ‘in the academic
world…modernisation theory became
outdated in the early 1980s, such theories
have also, been criticised by Marxist
oriented social science theorists.
91
• Hyden’s works although based on the
assumption that (i) a paradigmatic shift is
urgently needed in African Studies and (ii)
that Africa is so much different from other
LDCs of Asia and Latin America that recent
theoretical advances in the understanding of
development processes are of limited value
when applied to Africa, is still based on the
modernisation perspective.
92
• But it is modernisation theory clothed with
Marxist political economy. Thus the Marxist
central concept of ‘mode of production’ is
employed as well as the insistence on
internal factors as primary and external ones
as secondary.
93
• The Peasant Mode of Production
(PMP)
• First, the root of Africa’s underdevelopment
are not found in the international capitalist
system but rather they are found in the
resilience and persistence of the pre-modern
and pre-capitalist structures of the
continent’s rural areas
94
• Second, although the peasantry in Africa is
the creation of the colonising powers,
African peasants are more integrated into
the cash economy than peasants elsewhere.
The PMP is still the predominant mode in
African societies.
95
• Third, the PMP is characterised by a
rudimentary division of labour and small
independent units of production with no
structurally enforced cooperation.Consequently nature plays a
central role in peasant production and there
is also very little exchange between various
units of production.
96
• Fourth, the use of rudimentary technology,
i.e. crude techniques of production, and the
lack of variety of production among the
units has the following implications:
production of basic necessities is both a
full-time occupation and a primary concern
of every peasant house-hold – hence the
domestic orientation of each unit of
production;
97
• The peasants invest so much time and effort
in producing the basic necessities that they
become reluctant to take any chances
including that of adopting new innovations
even if this holds out the promise of
financial gains.
98
• Fifth, soil fertility is maintained through shifting
cultivation and bush fallowing. Thus farming
depends on natural resources endowments rather
than on modern inputs.
• Sixth, the prevalence of PMP gives rise to a
specific economy, the ‘economy of affection’ in
which ‘familial and other communal ties provide
the basis for organised activity’.
99
• The Dependency/World-Systems
Perspective.
• Underdevelopment of the LDCs is seen as a
product of this world.
• Colonialism, poverty, war, hunger, racism and
genocide – all these and more have been both
cause and effect of the world wide spread of the
capitalist mode of production.
100
• Despite its early period of tremendous vigor,
however capitalism contained within itself an
anticipated dynamic of underdevelopment.
• Underdevelopment refers to the present peculiar
conjunction of productive forces and production
relations among the ‘poor’ countries, which at the
prevailing levels of human technological
development constitutes the objective basis of
their poverty and of the growing inequalities of
income and wealth which the world-system of
production and exchange naturally reproduces.
101
• The rapid development of science and
technology in the core after the second
World war, the fall of the colonial
system,e.t.c has made the old colonial type
of division of labour undergo substantial
changes.
102
• The post-colonial development programmes
of the LDCs have put special emphasis on
import substitution industrialization. These
policies have inter alia, led to industrial
relocation or redeployment (mainly of
certain consumer goods) to the periphery.
103
• The problem with this type of
industrialization is that the assumed benefits
(e.g. reduction of external dependence,
imports, balance-of-payments, e.t.c) were
more than offset by the importation of
capital goods, spare parts, experts, patents,
licenses and trademarks.
104
• African peasants are not the same everywhere.
What and how they produce and share what is
produced depends mostly on how both the state
and capital seek to extract surplus from them.
Generally peasants in sub Saharan Africa are
exploited through relations of commodity
production and exchange which also integrate
them into the international capitalist system. The
strategies employed differ from country to country
and even within a country itself.
105
• A paradigmatic shift is required in African studies,
this shift lies in developing a development theory
and strategy that would transform the peasant
economy without proletalisation of the peasant,
but at the same time guaranteeing them higher and
higher living standards. This would entail the
specification of what role the state should play in
such process. The other issue that must be dealt
with is the relationship between the state and the
civil society.
106
• Broadly speaking the philosophical
tendencies are discernible over the years as
follows:
• 1. Ethno philosophy- colonial agents
• 2. Africanism- (African civilisation,
negritude, PAN AFRICANISM, African
socialism, African humanism, authenticity
107
• 3. Theory of African revolution- Fanon, Nkrumah,
Cabral)
• 4. Professional philosophers- non non Marxist
advocated for intellectual renaissance as the basis
of meaningful development.
• 5. Critics of the professional philosopherscriticised the elitist idealistic thesis of renaissance
by the intellectuals- Nkrumah, Cabral – take up
challenge to equip theoretically the anti-imperialist
resistance.
86
• Ethno-philosophy has continued to date
• . America today has tended to believe that their
institutions and values represent universal
aspirations- democracy, individual rights, the rule
of law, prosperity based on economic freedomand that it will ultmately be shared by by all
people of the world and tentatively to think that
globally people cherish americam values.
87
• They believe that western institutions are the
scientific method, which though discovered in the
west have universal application.
• The major views propagated by Fukuyama where
the church and religion aught to be separated from
the state.
• For Africa (cultural traditions will prevent
societies from modernizing’
• The Moslem/ Islamic world has problems with
modernity. They reject not only western policies
but the most basic principles of mordenity.
88
• Which Huntington refuses,
• Differences among civilizations are not only
real but basic
• The world is becoming to small of a place
• Cultural characteristics and differences are
less mutable.
108
• The way out of underdevelopment is through social
struggles for broad democracy which will free public
criticism, scientific creativity, and social and political
self organisation capacities of the working people,
which will enable the total transformation of social
relations in Africa. This is the conception of
development/transformations discernible in the debates
amongst African philosophers. This conception
demands that one entertains less economism.
Technologism and structulism in the examination
processes and concentrates more on the whole
questions of conditions of self organisation of the
African masses for the total transformation of societies.
109
• Population growth has only recently been viewed
as a concern by development theorist and planners
in Africa. Development has not been taking place
at a desirable rate. The number of people to be
provided for has increased enormously, stretching
resources and the planning apparatus to their
limits. It is becoming obvious to development
planners that human reproduction ought to be
reduced.
110
• However, inspite of the expressed
pessimism, many African governments will
still appear to feel either that the control of
population growth is not relevant to their
development problems or to the quality of
life, or that the issues are too delicate and
politically dangerous to deal with a hurry.
111
• Rapid population growth in Africa is a positive
force on political, economic and social grounds. It
is commonly heard that Africa has low density
population by world standards, only about 21
persons per square KM. The low densities of
African countries have often been compared with
high densities among non African countries,
developed and developing and the conclusion has
been obvious- they can cope with these high rates.
112
• Progressive social change is possible in Africa. All that
is lacking are clear ideological mentality, more inward
looking policies, proper management, and a high level
of commitment and fore sight on the part of leadership.
The necessary political will certainly goes beyond
development strategies that simply maintains the status
quo, as well as population policies and programmes
that are put together with little consideration of social
realities of the masses for whom they are made. Such
programmes are doomed to failure in a social milieu
where a larger, rather than smaller family size is both
rational and desirable.
113
• Certainly there are short cuts to development
based on long term investment. Whatever
tradeoffs that are made they must be seen to either
directly or indirectly enhance local and national
security, especially in economic terms. However,
economic benefits should not be viewed in the
simply tangible gains of here and now. They must
be seen to feed into the future hopes and promisesthis becomes economic investment not so much in
economic terms as in social terms.
114
• The proposed approach to economic
development is one that on one hand avoids
the past extensive and blind government
controls on the economy as well as past
huge public sector and expenditure, and on
one hand limits the blind liberalisation of
the economy as advocated by the IMF.
115
• To confront the unfavorable world
economic conditions, Sub Saharan Africa
will have to continue to use bilateral
diplomacy and explore possibilities of
bargaining. Even though the global debate
on the NIEO is dead there is still a chance
to negotiate separate elements of new order
with the countries of the north.
116
• Markets can be liberalised or overliberalised, but without having a state
capable of harnessing the energies and
advantages the liberalised markets well,
these same institutions can turn into
monsters that will devour the energies of the
most productive rural force- the small
holder peasants.
117
• The relative failure of African entrepreneur
and the disappointing record of the
bourgeoisie calls for fresh initiative in
revitalising entrepreneurship in the
continent.
• Democracy is not just political; it is also
cultural and economic.
118
• The collapse of East European neo-Stalinist
translates into irrelevance of Marxist paradigm or
socialist project. The resurgence of US led
imperialism and decimation of sub Saharan socioeconomic and cultural landscape will generate its
own anti-thesis. The imperatives of freedom,
economic and cultural and political sovereigntydevoid of gun boat diplomacy and IMF/WB
supervision- will make urgent the analysis of
contemporary social relations, and outlines of the
society Africa desires.
119
• There is an urgent need to build and
strengthen research capacity in Africa to
undertake the existing tasks, and in the
process hopefully formulate theoretical
perspectives to guide the development of
education in the nineties and beyond. This is
an opportunity which should not be lost as
we grapple with efforts that can lead us out
of the current crisis.
120
• The donors’ idea of capacity-building is
closely linked with policy formation and
implementation, but seldom linked to any
theoretical work. African researchers should
go beyond this to challenge the theoretical
assumptions which guide the donor
activities, and policy recommendations.
121
• The result of this critical questioning and
discourse will definitely come up with
theoretical and methodological approaches
which can guide and sustain education
enterprise in the tasks ahead. This is an
opening which exists and which should be
seized upon.This should be undertaken
regardless of whether donor funding is
forthcoming.
122
• It is however an essential element of
capacity-building which tends to be ignored
as pressing problems of the day are dealt
with.
123
• Development is the product of human
efforts.As a result it has both its architects
and auditors. The former are typically
persons with a vision, wedded more or less
explicitly to a give ideology. Most of them
occupy positions of power, a prerequisite
for the successful dissemination of their
ideas.
124
• Depending on both context and timing,
ideas may or may not go far in shaping the
development of a given society. Some
political architects are capable of making
quite a mark on their society, Others,
however they try, found themselves
forgotten by people.
125
• The principal auditors of development are
academics. Their task is to assess within a given
theoretical perspective, how successful the
architects are in shaping the process of social
change according to their own models. Academics
as auditors typically take a back seat, but when the
occasion demands , many rush to the front
expressing their concern over what is happening .
126
• They tend to become activists especially when
unanticipated concequences of architectural
ambitions become imminent.In other words when
the ideal and practice of development grows
increasingly apart.
• The auditors are at least in principle independent,
but much of their work takes its lead from
perspectives provided by the political architects.
126
• That is the way it should be as any attempt
at evaluating their interventions must be
built on premises similar to those on which
these interventions were planned. It is
unfortunately a common sin of many
academics to ignore this basic premise and
instead direct their critique of the architects
from lofty positions where they often
appear ‘holier than thou’.
127
• Shift in ideological perspectives
• Trickle down-Basic needs-small is
beautiful-enabling environment.
• Shift in development theory
• Structural functionalism-Neo-Marxist
political economy-Neo-liberal political
economy –The new institutionalism.
128
• The new institutionalist perspective with its
emphasis on social and cultural variable
offers an intellectual foundation on which a
genuine African perspective may develop.
Such a perspective would include what is
peculiar to to the African condition, yet
relate to broader theory in such a way as to
allow meaningful comparisons.
129
• This is the Challenge for all who study the
African continent, but it is particularly
relevant to African scholars with the
ambition to make a contribution to both
their continent’s development and the
progress of the social sciences
130
• 1.Brett, 1973: I am primarily concerned with three
aspects of change – those relating to the structure
and size of economic production, the nature of the
distribution of the social product, and the location
of control over social processes. These concerns
embody a set of related normative assumptions
that production be maximised, distribution
equalized and control Decentralised.
131
• 2. Politically independent Africans need this
dual systems and modes of production …
and it seems to me very clear indeed that
this revolution will not be, cannot be in the
direction of socialism.
132
• 3. Historians and archaeologists working on
Africa in the ‘40s were moved by the very
nature of their enterprise away from their
frequently neutral or conservative positions.
• …many of those who… began to research
the possible facts of African history, were
themselves driven by the very pressure of
what they were doing, to take up a stance in
133
in favour of the defense of African Values and
so, by extension, in favour of what I would
regard as radical positions…I can think of a
number for whom the discovery of African
History has been a continuous means of
political self enlightenment.
134
• What one is concerned with, after all, in the
development of studies is not vehement
declaration but the uncovering of concealed
realities. Such an understanding moreover,
is not merely an intellectual stance, it is a
political programme which looks out to and
invites in all Africanists.
135
• The sole criterion – although it might seem
to some either pompous or idealistic to say
so – is truth.This is what Cabral believed
and it was why he had to be killed: those
who conceal things from the masses, hide
difficulties , and claim easy victories, live
longer.
136
• African Studies Periodisation
• T0 1860 – Exploration of Africa
- Exoticism of travel and adventure;
origins of human society
- Literature,Philosophy, accounts of travel.
137
• 1860-1920- Colonial conquest
- Justified by evolutionist theory;
possibility of ethnology
- Ethnography, Ethnology
139
• 1920-45
- Development
- Self-justified.Ethnology describes the
reality of development without questioning
its principle: Functionalism which deludes
itself and is deluding.
- Ethnology applied anthropology.
140
• 1945-60 – Decolonisation
- Massive entry of Africans into history and
into science. Consideration of the colonial
connection and preceding descriptions.
Transition of anthropology to sociology and
suppression of scientific exoticism
- Sociology; sociology of underdevelopment.
141
• 1960-? – Neo – Colonialism
- Discovery of illusions of independence . Radical
criticism of the connection considered as
economic mechanism (imperialism). Marxist
Revival (following de-Stalinization) which
reoccupies the whole theoretical domain of
African Studies and pursues unification of
anthropology, sociology and political economy
(concept of mode of production)
- Anthropology,sociology, political economy.
142
• The image of Africa in contemporary
African Studies has shed a great deal of the
racism and paternalism of colonial
scholarship.Colonialism itself is now a dirty
word and not many contemporary
Africanists are in sympathy with it – at least
in print.
143
• The change intellectual climate is of course
traceable to the changed political climate of
independent African nations in which
Africanists of various disciplinary
backgrounds have now to work.
144
• Political, intellectual, and financial
obstacles will be put in the way of an
African sociology dedicated to this
structural disengagement. But we ought not
to retreat to the old position where Africans
are important only as academic subjects. It
is our duty to identify with their aspirations.
If courage is what we need, there are several
sources of inspiration in the African past.
145
• Finally, if, indeed, social relations are
characterised by the dualism which Kuper
finds in plural societies, then the
polarization of which he is in such great
fear will, almost by definition, be promoting
depluralisation in another dimension.
146
• One characteristic of African societies is that they
were never truly isolated. The African continent
has known two major phenomena: the mobility of
its people and the volume of long-distance trade.
Migrations – collective movements or progressive
infiltrations – came to an end only in the colonial
era when colonial regimes fixed populations for
more effective police control or for such
administrative goals as tax collection or the
allocation of lots for private property.
147
• The economic life of pre-colonial societies
was characterised by the juxtaposition of
two apparently contradictory levels: the
local subsistence village and international,
even transcontinental commerce.
148
• The African mode of production is based upon the
combination of a patriarchal-communal economy
and the exclusive ascendancy of one group over
long-distance trade. The form of power at any
given moment depends upon the nature of this
group. If political authority was in the hands of the
heads of kinship groups at the village level, their
preeminence was then uncontested.
149
• Major theoretical problems have to be surmounted
before Western institutions can be successfully
transplanted from one society to another. The mere
existence of a body of advanced technical
knowledge does not provide any basis for the
advancement even where the capital is available to
acquire the physical assets involved. The new
technology will only make a positive contribution
where it is relevant to local needs and can be
adapted to suit local conditions.
150
• Yet experience shows , that nationalization
becomes an effective lever in the struggle
for economic independence , only when it
has been thoroughly prepared and all the
necessary prerequisites have been created.
Thus of great importance for successful
nationalization are such factors as technical
know-how and the availability of of
national specialists capable of managing
151
• industry, and of trained labour; also
important is guaranteed market for the
goods made and availability of raw
materials for the smooth running of the
industries e.t.c. The fact is that a drastic
measure like nationalization incites the
monopolists into desperate attempts at
disrupting the economic life of the country
which ventured such a step.
152
• The monopolies resort to economic
discrimination, boycott, recall of technical
advisors and administrative personnel, e.t.c.
Hence, a country must well prepare in good
time to face these difficulties, if winning
economic independence is to be ensured,
and not merely played with as a short-lived
political speculation.
153
• In countries where conditions for
nationalization have not yet ripened, it is
advisable to consider the task of controlling
the activities of foreign capital and inviting
it on terms that are conducive, and not
detrimental, to the progress of national
economy.
154
• It is the nature of the political revelations
between foreign capital, the local business
bourgeoisie, the ‘privileged’ strata of wage
earners, and the administrative bureaucracy
that ultimately determines the important
aspects of the evolution of this social
distribution of income.
155
• Where there is no business, the bourgeoisie,
as is often the case in Black Africa, the
privileged wage earning strata may become,
together with the administrative
bureaucracy , the chief transmission belt of
domination from without.
156
• No one should have illusions about the
national bourgeoisie. It may be an
oppressed bourgeoisie, but it is still a
bourgeoisie. Ad as long as it plays a leading
role in the African Revolution, it will
prevent the transition to socialism.
157
• But if it is weak, so is the African working
class which, almost every African territory,
has been unable so far to establish its own
party, based on Marxism. This serves to
undermine the fact that Africa’s road to
socialism will not be easy or
short.Enthusiasm for the socialist future
should not be allowed to deem one’s view
of the stage one has reached , nor of the
158
• tremendous obstacles that have to be
overcome. The economic, social and
cultural backwardness of Africa is itself a
powerful argument for the revolutionary
forces to utilize every potential for change
and make use every possible contradiction
between the national bourgeoisie and the
imperialists.
159
• Therefore, when confronted with the
problem of a divided working class in
underdeveloped countries, we should not
relapse into the easy language of metaphors.
Objectively speaking, there are neither
‘aristocrats’ nor ‘petit bourgeois’ among
those who suffer systematic extraction of
surplus value in society.
160
• Vulgar praxis and income differentials are as old
as the history of the working class itself, but they
need to be acknowledged in in order to be
defeated. In Africa it is the more deprived, semiproletarianised migrant workers who are a
potential counter-weight to those elements among
the industrial workers who are swayed by their
immediate gains. Only when that balance is
achieved can the antithesis to state capitalism and
bureaucratic entrenchment become a reality.
151 DEVELOPMENT
COOPERATION
• What is new and what is old
• Movement from bilateral to multilateral
cooperation
• The international system of development
finance is expanding.
• It is also moving from public to private
spheres
152
• Bilateral donors- DAC donors, OECD, non DAC, emerging donors
• Multilateral – WB, IMF, UNDP, REGIONAL DEV BANKS,
OTHERS
• GLOBAL PROGRAMMES- GAVI (vaccination and immunization),
fast track initiative, education for all, UN specialized agencies.
• NGOS- international, national in donor and developing countries.
• Other private non profit- foundations, households- remittances and
other private
• Private for profit- firms, commercial banks, private investors.
153
• In all failures is as a result of failing to take
note of complexities. Reading- Alan Perlis
• ‘Fools ignore complexity, Pragmatists suffer
from it, geniuses remove it’.
• DEVEOPMENT WORK IS THERE FOR
YOU FAILURE OR SUCCESS IS
DEPENDED ON YOUR CHARACTER.