We have all heard of EAST ASIAN MIRACLE where countries such as Singapore ,Taiwan. South korea etc managed to achieve high growth rate after a decade of independence. Not to be outdone countries in south asia such as india and china also turned around their economies to post high growth rates. Infact china became ‘factory of the world’ while india is known as ‘office of the world’.But in the midst of euphoria we seem to have forgotten Africa- a continent with abundant natural resources and diverse geography. Like its counterparts in south asia, Africa too suffered under yoke of imperialism and colonlism leading to its exploitation .howver unlike other countries who after independence came into their own and pulled their economies out of stagnation, …show more content…
Africa’s share of world trade shrank even more sharply and its share in global foreign direct investment went down fron from 5.1 per cent in1970-79 to 2.5 percent in1980-89.and 1.9 percent in 1990-99 before rising to 2.4 pecent in 2000-06. [noman and stiglitz economics and policy some lessons from Africa experience.].in terms of ha joon chang Africa suffered from ‘growth …show more content…
HA JOON CHANG vehemently argues that structural handicaps such as-lousy climate, landlockedness,abundant natural resources,ethnic divisions,poor quality institutions and bad culture were present in most of todays rich countries yet their economy did not stagnate and they grew.he strongly believes that the structural adjustment programme/ reform[sap]initiated by imf and world bank ultimately harmed African economy. The data speaks for itself as as Africa did not have a problem of growing during 1960s and 70s but after free market and free trade policies were adopted Africa slipped into period of severest economic decline.
The neoliberal policies followed did not yield desired results as jobs were lost in liberalization and new businesss were not set up in Africa . the expected FDI also did not materialize thus bad economic policies and faulty implementation was responsible for Africa