ABSTRACT
African-Arab-Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development relations with respect to energy and other issues must be traced back to the topsy-turvy period, and these relations in turn must be set within the broader context of the contemporary crisis of international capitalism. The degree to which a single African country is affected by the energy crisis depends upon several critical factors, the principal ones being the structure of its national political economy and the sources of its energy supply. Despite agriculture's major contribution to African gross domestic product, the direct effect of the oil price increase on agricultural output is limited. In most African countries, the transition from colonialism to independence was accomplished with little change in the economic structures characteristic of colonialism, which involved external economic dependence and distorted, irrational, and poverty-generating internal policies. The base of African political economy is a huge rural agricultural sector with a few appended cities and industries.
