ABSTRACT
Engagements between the Bretton Woods institutions (BWI: World Bank and International Monetary Fund, IMF) and Africa have a long history, dating back to just a few years after the institutions were rst established. Although the Bank and the Fund’s involvement in Africa increased signi cantly from the late 1970s onwards, the Bank, in particular, had been engaging different African countries prior to the rst oil crisis of the mid-1970s – mainly through project lending for infrastructure developments such as energy, transportation (road and rail), telecommunications, water supply and education. Often, discussions of the operation of the Bank and the Fund in Africa focus on the Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) and their associated instruments – the Structural Adjustment Loans (SALs) and Sectoral Adjustment Loans (SECALs) for the Bank, and the various nancing facilities for the Fund – and overlook the Bank and the Fund’s earlier activities. While the range, intensity, and level of their involvement increased during the 1980s, Africa’s relationship with the World Bank and the IMF did not start with SAPs. The Bank, in particular, had been providing project loans to different African countries prior to the policy-based lending of the 1980s. After country missions to two of its rst African member countries (Ethiopia and South Africa) in 1950, the Bank approved the rst loan in Africa: to Ethiopia. 1
Nonetheless, prior to the 1980s the Bank and the Fund had limited activities and in uence in Africa, with most of the work focusing largely on providing technical assistance related to the projects which they funded. During this period several countries – chie y Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Zambia, Ethiopia and Sudan – were the Bank’s biggest clients, accounting for more than 60 per cent of total lending to Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) (Kapur et al ., 1997 ). In the case of the Fund, it had limited business in African countries prior to the rst oil shock of 1973. The Fund’s main form of engagement was the Stand-by Arrangement (SBA), a short-term balance of payments (BoP) support facility initiated during the 1960s. The Extended Fund Facility (EFF), which was a medium-term lending mechanism, was only introduced in 1974 to provide support to countries affected by the rst oil shock. However, despite these low-key engagements, it is possible to discern the Bank and Fund’s understanding
and explanation of Africa’s economic growth and development challenges at this time.
