ABSTRACT
In the period 1975-1977, the most recent period for which statistics are available, total Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) public aid to all developing countries amounted to $42 billion, while total Arab-Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) aid for the same period amounted to $16.8 billion. The industrialized nations of the world have sufficient political, social, and economic depth to with-stand, painful as they may be, the readjustments required by the end of an era of cheap energy. The capital-surplus Arab-OPEC states should provide funds for a special and conditional facility to be administered by either the International Monetary Fund or their own watchdog body. All aid organizations-Arab, OECD and multilateral--would greatly facilitate project implementation and funds disbursement if the many organizations concerned were to desist from bureaucratic duplication and self-justification. If politics and economics are indeed indivisible, then Black Africa has many of its own political shibboleths to blame for its economic shortchanging.
