ABSTRACT
The ambivalence felt by many African intellectuals and policymakers toward the private enterprise system came to the fore immediately during the first round table discussion. Participants who saw private enterprise playing a dynamic role in African development pointed to the economic ills that have resulted from interventionist, state-oriented policies. For the most part, the papers and discussion of the colonial legacy with regard to constraints on African private enterprise assumed that the extraversion of African economic structures constituted a serious obstacle to future private enterprise development. It is hard to see how the public sector is "complementing" the private sector if its policies are driving small entrepreneurs out of business and discouraging others from starting businesses. Three sorts of economic constraints were discussed in workshop II: those pertaining to the size of African markets; those pertaining to the structure of African markets; and the problems suffered by the African private sector because of lack of access to capital and credit.
