ABSTRACT
Many of the higher-income Third World countries were able to recover somewhat by expanding export earnings; however, the African Most Seriously Affected Countries (MSAs) nations were left with only one basic alternative. Although largely preoccupied with their own oil-price raises, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development states and the international aid structures tied to them contrived a variety of ad hoc arrangements to lessen the impact of the price rise on the forty-two MSAs, twenty-seven of which were African states. The international private banks have vastly increased their lending activities to the non-oil developing countries. In 1968-72, annual private-bank lending to the less developed African countries (LDCs) averaged $1 billion, but in 1975 lending skyrocketed to $7.6 billion. The existing international aid and development institutions reacted by forming ad hoc adjunct programs within their already operating programs. Prior to the 1973 oil-price crisis, the Arab OPEC countries maintained only two international aid institutions.
