ABSTRACT
Over the last decade the foreign relations of sub-Saharan African states have focused increasingly on their severe economic and fiscal crises. In 1982 the International Monetary Fund (IMF) decided to rely almost exclusively on stand-bys, but to use a medium term view of adjustment and a slightly wider set of policies to augment exports and improve monitoring and implementation. An important psychological side effect of the foreign economic relations is that scarce talent is constantly preoccupied by negotiations with external actors about adjustment issues, while attempting to implement previous agreements. One primary effect of Africa's current crisis, which has been greatly aggravated by the IMF's particular conditionality package, is import strangulation. A few African countries, such as Botswana and Rwanda, have serviced their debt and have not needed rescheduling, or, like Gabon, have rescheduled once and subsequently maintained good debt service.
