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AFRICA
THE FACTS
As the juggernaut of globalization judders
on,
Africa is increasingly being left behind. Despite having followed the
West's political and economic prescriptions, African development at the
start of the new century has ground to a halt.
ECONOMY
- RUNNING TO STAND STILL
Africa
has endured two decades of structural adjustment during which the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) has called the tune and demanded that governments
dance to it. Yet at the end of those two decades Africa's income per person
(the IMF's own chosen measure) is lower than it was at the beginning,
while the world as a whole has made steady progress and the rich world's
income has gone through the roof.1
After
the disasters of the 1980s and early 1990s, the last five years have finally
seen the economy of Africa as a whole growing. Yet this growth in GNP
barely keeps pace with the increase in population, and has no serious
impact on poverty. Between 1997 and 1998 (the most recent years for which
there are statistics) on the World Bank's own figures the GNP per capita
of 13 African countries went up - but that of 21 African countries actually
went down.2 In 22 African countries the
GNP per capita is still lower than it was in 1980.
DEBT - THE BIGGEST BURDEN
Africa's debt burden is more than twice as large as that of any other
region when measured as a proportion of its economic size.
In
addition, for all the West's insistence that Africa pursue free trade,
the World Bank estimates that the West's own high tariffs, anti-dumping
regulations and technical barriers to trade in industrialized countries
cost sub-Saharan Africa $20 billion a year in lost exports.4
PLUNGING
PRICES
The real prices received by African farmers for four key export crops
in the mid-1990s were around 60 per cent of what they were in 1973.
DEMOCRACY
DOMINANT - BUT CONFLICT CONTINUES
 A
sea change in the 1990s saw 45 out of 50 African countries hold multiparty
elections, in addition to the four which had a democratic system in place
at the start of the decade. Only 10 of these elections, however, produced
a change of government.4 As the
list of current conflicts shows, taking the gun out of African politics
will not be easy.
LIFE
EXPECTANCY - AFRICA MAROONED
The most basic index of well-being is life itself - how many years
a human can expect to live. Yet while other regions' life expectancy is
steadily improving, Africa's is now going backwards.
. Life expectancy declined in no fewer than 31 African countries between
1995 and 1998.8
. The average sub-Saharan African can expect to live 14 years less than
someone in the next-poorest region, South Asia - and 30 years less than
someone in the industrialized world.
. In Zimbabwe and Uganda the impact of deaths attributed to aids has reduced
average life expectancy in 1998 to below what it was in 1960.5
ARMS
AND THE BLACKBOARD
African governments are often decried for wasting precious money on the
military. Yet on average their military spending (as a share of total
expenditure) is broadly comparable to that of the West. And they spend
proportionally more on education than any other region in the world.
Sources:
1 1980: World Bank World Development Report 1982. 1990:
World Bank World Development Report 1992. 1998: UNICEF State
of the World's Children 2000.
2 UNICEF State of the World's Children reports for 1999 and
2000.
3 World Bank World Development Report 1998/1999.
4 KY Amoako, Director of UN Economic Commission for Africa, keynote
address to Africa Confidential conference, 19 April 2000.
5 UNICEF State of the World's Children 2000.
6 Calculated from population and life expectancy figures in UNICEF
State of the World's Children 1982.
7 UNDP Human Development Report 1992.
8 UNICEF State of the World's Children reports for 1997 and
2000.
9 UNctad Trade and Development Report 1998.
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New
Internationalist 326
