Structural Adjustment and Beyond in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The literature on recent African economic development has been dominated to a considerable extent, not to say hi-jacked, by the topic of Structural Adjustment. The two books which are the subject of this review represent significant new contributions to this literature. The first (edited by Rolph Van Der Hoeven and Fred Van Der Kraaij - referred to below as VDH & VDK) is the more important, bringing together contributions by eminent academicians and practitioners to a June 1993 conference arranged and funded by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The second (edited by Willem Van Der Geest - referred to below as VDG) is the proceedings of a March 1991 workshop organised and sponsored by the Structural Adjustment Advisory Team for Africa of the UNDP in Oxford. It is a pity that this second volume could not have been published earlier, since the three-year delay makes much of the empirical material somewhat dated, even though the volume still contains some invaluable contributions.

In his keynote address to the VDH & VDK volume Kighoma Malima, the Tanzanian politician and academician, raises fundamental questions about Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs). Why, for example, are we moving into the third and fourth rounds …