ABSTRACT
Village communities and women’s groups have tried to fill the gap by their own grass roots organizations in rural areas and the informal economy has done something similar in the towns, but they lack essential linkages with each other and with the main organizations of business and government. Networks have the advantage over corporate structures and state hierarchies in that they enable groups and individuals to establish long-term links which still leave them free to make their own independent decisions within a mutually agreed framework of cooperation. One crucial aspect of more democratic government in Africa would be the opening up of the separate nation-states to increased neighbourly and regional cooperation. Maureen Mackintosh’s study of a United States company’s groundnut plantation in Senegal showed how the young men going out to work for a wage, even without leaving home, broke up the whole local farming system.
