ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the effects of structural adjustment (SA) on the state and the common people in Africa. It shows that SA has failed; dissects the World Banks efforts to disguise that failure; and presents a case for an alternate orientation, developmental activism (DA). The chapter focuses on the poverty of sub-Saharan Africa, by analyzing the specious nature of the World Bank defense of SA, and indirectly by stating the case for the superiority of DA. It examines the statistics of African economic growth, briefly depicts the worsened state of poverty of sub-Saharan Africa after two decades of SA, and scrutinizes the World Banks major defense of SA and its proclamation of success. An erroneous perception prevails that African economies have experienced continuous stagnation or worse since the mid-twentieth-century power shift to Africans. Although an African renaissance is yet to come, positive forces in civil society and better leadership may strengthen the African contribution to the development process.
