ABSTRACT
Despite years of implementing market-oriented reforms aimed at improving both the
macroeconomic and microeconomic environments, there continue to be depressing
levels of deprivation across Africa. This is easily demonstrated by statistics on key
measures of economic well-being. Economic growth, which is supposed to generate
the resources for investments in education and health, fell by 1 percent between 1975
and 1999. Adult literacy in sub-Saharan Africa, at 60 percent, stands well below the
73 percent average for developing countries (United Nations Development Programme
2001). Life expectancy at birth is still only 48 years, compared with more than 60 years
pandemic. The number of people living on less than US$1 a day is as high as 46 percent.
