Our Continent, Our Future: African Perspectives on Structural Adjustment

This is the first book to present the African perspective on the Bretton Woods approach to structural adjustment, and it does so with the input and support of top economists and scholars from every corner of Africa. The authors use as background their own extensive experience and a collection of 30 individual studies to summarize this African perspective and articulate a path for the future. They underscore the need to be sensitive to each country’s unique history and current condition. They argue for a broader policy agenda and for a much more active role for the state within what is largely a market economy. Finally, they stress that Africa must, and can, compete in an increasingly globalized world and, perhaps most importantly, that Africans must assume the leading role in defining the continent’s development agenda.

Thandika Mkandiwire is Director of the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) in Geneva. From 1986 until 1996, he served as Executive Secretary of CODESRIA, the Council for the Development of Social Research in Africa in Dakar, Senegal. Dr Mkandawire also serves on the editorial boards of Global Governance, Development and Change, and Africa Development. He is a member of the Scientific Committee of the Association of African Universities, the International Board of the Swedish NGO Fund for Human Rights, and the Executive Board of the International Institute for Labour Studies.

Charles C. Soludo is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka, Nigeria. Dr Soludo is an Elected Member of the Governing Council for the Nigerian Economic Society and, has been a visiting scholar at the International Monetary Fund, the University of Cambridge, The Brookings Institute, and the University of Oxford.