ABSTRACT
Kenya is one of Africa’s larger states, having a population then of about 12 million, which has been growing fast even by African standards, doubling in less than twenty years. Its territory is large and varied. Economists at the International Labour Office (ILO) had already in the 1960s identified the problems of applying modern technology, imported from the industrialized countries, with the aim of introducing a modern sector into the economies of developing countries. The response of the Kenyan government to the ILO’s recommendations was bland: ‘in most cases, proposals in the report reflect, or are consistent with, current government policies.’ African governments were to be required to reduce their involvement in their economies and open them up more actively to outside influences through measures of structural adjustment. The year 1984 appears as a turning point in the approach of the official international institutions to human needs.
