social policy in sub-saharan african context: in search of inclusive development (social policy in a...

Social Policy in Sub-SaharanAfrican Context

In Search of Inclusive Development

’Jìmí O. Adésínà

Edited by

Social Policy in Sub-Saharan African Context

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Social Policy in a Development Context

General Editors: Thandika Mkandawire and Huck-ju Kwon, both at UNRISD

Social Policy in a Development Context is a new series which places social pol-icy at the centre of research while maintaining the United Nations ResearchInstitute for Social Development (UNRISD)’s unified approach to social develop-ment. The series provides a new and exciting contribution to the literature ineconomic development and social policy. In economic development, social pol-icy has been recognized as an integral part of development, but the literatureoften falls short of elaborating social policy for a unified approach to economicand social development. In social policy, analysis has concentrated mainly onEuropean and North American countries, and studies on developing countriesoften lack comparative rigour. The bridge between economic development andsocial policy will not only contribute to the academic research but also informthe policy debate at the international and national levels.

Titles include:’Jìmí O. Adésínà (editor)SOCIAL POLICY IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICAN CONTEXTIn Search of Inclusive Development

Manuel Riesco (editor)LATIN AMERICAA New Developmental Welfare State Model in the Making?

Giovanni Andrea Cornia (editor)PRO-POOR MACROECONOMICSPotential and Limitations

Olli Kangas and Joakim Palme (editors)SOCIAL POLICY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN THE NORDIC COUNTRIES

Massoud Karshenas and Valentine M. Moghadam (editors)SOCIAL POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EASTPolitical, Economics and Gender Dynamics

Huck-Ju Kwon (editor)THE DEVELOPMENTAL WELFARE STATE AND POLICY REFORMS IN EAST ASIA

Maureen Mackintosh and Meri Koivusalo (editors)COMMERCIALIZATION OF HEALTH CAREGlobal and Local Dynamics and Policy Responses

Thandika Mkandawire (editor)SOCIAL POLICY IN A DEVELOPMENT CONTEXT

Shahra Razavi and Shireen Hassim (editors)GENDER AND SOCIAL POLICY IN A GLOBAL CONTEXTUncovering the Gendered Structure of ‘the Social’

Social Policy in a Development ContextSeries Standing Order ISBN 1–4039–4295-1 (hardback) 1–4039–4296-X (paperback)(outside North America only)

You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order.Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below withyour name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above.

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Social Policy in Sub-Saharan African Context

In Search of Inclusive Development

Edited by

’Jìmí O. Adésínà

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© UNRISD 2007

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publicationmay be made without written permission.

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PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the PalgraveMacmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd.Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdomand other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the EuropeanUnion and other countries.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Social policy in sub-Saharan African context : in search of inclusive development / edited by ’Jìmí O. Adésínà.

p. cm. — (Social policy in a development context)Co-published with UNRISD.Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN-13: 978–0–230–52083–7 (cloth)ISBN-10: 0–230–52083–9 (cloth)1. Social planning–Africa, Sub-Saharan. 2. Africa, Sub-Saharan–Social

policy. 3. Africa, Sub-Saharan–Social conditions. I. Adesina, Jimi O.II. United Nations Research Institute for Social Development.

HN773.5.S57 2007320.60967–dc22 2006050813

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Printed and bound in Great Britain byAntony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne

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In Memoriam

To the memory of Chachage Seithy Loth Chachage(8 January 1955 to 9 July 2006)

A companion of honour and outstanding pan-African scholar,for a life well-spent.

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Contents

List of Tables ix

List of Figures x

Foreword xi

Preface xiv

List of Abbreviations and Acronyms xv

Notes on Contributors xix

1 In Search of Inclusive Development: Introduction 1’Jìmí O. Adésínà

2 Ruling Ideas and Social Development in Sub-Saharan Africa:An Assessment of Nationalist, Keynesian and Neoliberal Paradigms 54Abdul-Ganiyu Garba

3 Social Policy and Development in East Africa: The Case of Education and Labour Market Policies 87Chachage Seithy L. Chachage

4 Education, Employment and Development in Southern Africa: The Role of Social Policy in Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe 112Fred T. Hendricks

5 Social Policy and the Challenge of Development in Nigeria and Ghana: The Cases of Education and Labour Market Policies 148Bola Udegbe

6 The Role of Social Policy in Development: Health, Water and Sanitation in East Africa 171Rosemary Atieno and Alfred Ouma Shem

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7 The Sociopolitical Structure of Accumulation and Social Policy in Southern Africa 198Patrick Bond

8 Social Policy in the Development Context: Water, Health andSanitation in Ghana and Nigeria 224Oka Obono

Index 247

viii Contents

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List of Tables

1.1 Selected social development indicators of some sub-Saharan African countries 13

1.2 Gender and illiteracy rates (% of people age 15 and above) 1970–2000 19

1.3 National wealth, public spending and social policy outcomes (2002) 21

1.4 Per capita government expenditure on health at averageexchange rate (US$) 28

2.1 The ruling advice, 1950s–1990s 572.2 Tanzania: summary statistics 642.3 Keynesian innovations in the general theory and their

implications for social policy and social policy outcomes 694.1 Botswana enrolment at all levels, 1990–1999 1234.2 Primary school enrolment, 1980–2000 1344.3 Secondary school enrolment, 1980–2000 1355.1 Some education outcomes: Ghana and Nigeria 1595.2 Some indicators for education in Nigeria 1625.3 Some selected labour indicators: Ghana and Nigeria 1656.1 Infant mortality for Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania (1991

and 2001) 1756.2 Trends in selected macroeconomic indicators in the East

African countries 1786.3 Selected social policy indicators for health in East Africa 1906.4 Access to safe water and sanitation in East Africa 1916.5 Gini coefficients of East African countries 1928.1 Ghana: selected social and demographic indicators 2298.2 Incidence of poverty and poverty reduction, 1991/2–1998/9 2318.3 Water supply and sanitation in Ghana and Nigeria,

1990–2000 2348.4 Comparative data for selected high-income countries

and severely indebted low-income countries in 1991 2368.5 Public expenditure in health and water, 1980–4 2388.6 Public expenditure in health and water, 1985–92 2388.7 Public expenditure in health and water, 1993–2001 239

ix

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List of Figures

1.1 Gross domestic savings and gross capital formation in sub-Saharan Africa 14

1.2 Social development radar charts 362.1 Macroeconomic and microeconomic roots of social

policy and social outcomes 725.1 Government expenditure on education in Ghana and

Nigeria, 1960–98 (percentage of GDP) 1565.2 Nigeria: total, capital and recurrent expenditure on

education, 1970–2001 (percentage of GDP) 1576.1 Human Development Indices (HDI) 1726.2 Human Poverty Index (HPI), 1998–2001 1736.3 People without access to safe water, 1998–2001

(percentage) 1736.4 People not expected to live beyond fortieth

birthday (percentage) 1746.5 Life expectancy trends, 1998–2001 1757.1 Three ways to price water: marginal cost (A), for-profit (B),

and cross-subsidized lifeline plus rising block tariff (C) 2097.2 Divergent water pricing strategies – Johannesburg (2001)

versus ideal tariff for large households 211

x

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Foreword

This book is part of the UNRISD series, Social Policy in a DevelopmentContext – a theme of immediate and compelling relevance to sub-Saharan Africa. Perhaps more than any other region, the idea of the‘free’ market as the primary mechanism for resource allocation andsocial provisioning drove public policy under Bretton Woods trusteeshipof the region over the last 25 years. Economic and social polices weredefined largely as separate and antagonistic – typified by the idea thatequity and efficiency involve a trade-off. The result has been the deploy-ment of a range of economic policy instruments that have not been par-ticularly developmental, while producing major reversals in socialcohesion and equity.

The studies reported in this volume review Africa’s past experiences ofsocial policy, with an eye on the future. They examine a range of socialpolicy issues around health care, education, the labour market andsocial welfare. The chapters represent important reflections by Africanscholars on issues of pressing policy and intellectual significance. In theimmediate post-colonial era, the African nationalist leaders displayed akeen awareness of the positive links between social policy and economicdevelopment, and the significance of social policy for nation buildingand social cohesion. In many cases, this translated into significant progressin a number of social indicators. However, increasing social differentia-tion, the unravelling of ‘social pacts’ behind the struggle for independ-ence, authoritarian rule and the adoption of neoliberal policies haveeroded the position of social policies in the thinking of many Africangovernments. As a consequence, during the past two decades or so,Africa has witnessed major reversals in social gains acquired in the post-colonial era. There were, of course, some problems with post-colonialsocial policies. These included vertical and horizontal segmentation,poor delivery systems and underfunding. Rather than endeavouring tocorrect these weaknesses, however, more recent approaches have seenkey aspects of social policy simply jettisoned in favour of various formsof market provision.

An important lesson highlighted by these studies is the need to gobeyond the idea that state and civil society are antagonistic forces. Duringmuch of the adjustment period, civil society organizations have kept theissues of inequality, social protection and poverty on the agenda. Some

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organizations have also taken on the task of social provision. For thoseof an anti-statist persuasion, this has added to the arguments that aidmoney should be directed toward non-governmental organizations. Theargument has been advanced most insistently with respect to Africancountries. Yet there is a growing realization that many of the micro-levelachievements of NGOs can only be scaled up by the state. Furthermore,tying down NGOs to service delivery tends to compromise their vitaladvocacy roles. In any case, history teaches us that the successful exten-sion of social protection and the widening of access to health and edu-cation have involved collaboration between state and civil societyagencies, with the state assuming primary responsibility for citizens’well-being.

At a minimum, social policies perform protective, distributive andproductive roles. For developing countries, each of these roles isextremely important. The ‘creative destruction’ entailed by develop-ment can be socially disruptive and destructive of traditional forms ofsocial protection. The protection of citizens from destitution is not some-thing to be delayed until countries reach a high rate of economic growthor level of development. Failure to handle these processes can bring thewhole developmental enterprise to a halt. It is perhaps not surprisingthat it is precisely the ‘late industrializers’ of Northern Europe that tookthe ‘social question’ seriously and gave birth to the modern welfare state.The experience of late industrializers such as the East Asian and Nordiccountries shows that economic development and social policy are mutu-ally reinforcing, and that active social policy can play a major transfor-mative role in the process of economic development. It also a keyinstrument in the promotion of national cohesion.

UNRISD has incurred debts of gratitude to many institutions and indi-viduals in undertaking the research on which this volume is based. Theworkshop at which the framework of the research project and proposalswere discussed took place in Rhodes University, South Africa, in January2003. UNRISD would like to thank the University for putting its facilitiesat our disposal and the Vice Chancellor, Dr David Woods, who opened theworkshop.

UNRISD is grateful to the Swedish International Development Co-operation Agency (Sida), the United Kingdom Department forInternational Development (DFID) and the Ford Foundation for theirfinancial support for the research on which this volume is based. As isthe case with all UNRISD projects, work on the Social Policy in aDevelopment Context project would not have been possible without

xii Foreword

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the core funding provided by the governments of Denmark, Finland,Mexico, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Let meonce again take this opportunity to express our gratitude.

THANDIKA MKANDAWIRE

DIRECTOR, UNRISDJUNE 2006

Foreword xiii

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Preface

All of the papers in this volume emerged out of the research projects thatwere commissioned as part of the UNRISD research project on Social Policyin Late Industrializers: Sub-Saharan Africa and the Challenge of Social Policy.The volume itself should be read alongside Momar-Coumba Diop’s Lespolitiques sociales en Afrique de l’Ouest, published earlier by UNRISD. Therehas probably been no other time, in the last half-century of Africa’s his-tory, when the need for active social policy is more compelling. Yet, inmany ways, this volume touches only the minor parts of the crisis ofentitlement on the continent and the urgent need for inclusive develop-ment. The research project opens up new and compelling areas for fur-ther research – from social provisioning, especially in the twilight zonebetween the private and state-public provisioning, to the urgent task ofmacroeconomic policy instruments rooted in the normative task of inclu-sivity and protection of the dignity of people in the sub-region – as indi-viduals and collectivities.

In the course of this research programme, we have accumulated con-siderable debts to many people in Geneva and on the continent. I wouldlike to thank, in particular, Thandika Mkandawire, Huck-ju Kwon,Jenifer Freedman, Anita Tombez, Nina Torm and Josephine Grin-Yatesfor their support and long-suffering patience – which often went beyondthe call of reason. From Ghana to Tanzania, from Kenya to South Africawe owe considerable debt to several research assistants, field informants,public and private individuals who provided information and records –all of whom are too numerous to identify individually. This research,like the wider UNRISD project on Social Policy in a Development Context,would not have been possible without the financial support of severalbodies, including the Swedish International Development CooperationAgency (Sida), the United Kingdom Department for InternationalDevelopment (DFID) and the Ford Foundation.

’JÌMÍ O. ADÉSÍNÀ

RHODES UNIVERSITY, SOUTH AFRICA

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List of Abbreviations andAcronyms

ANC African National CongressARV anti-retroviralASAC Agricultural Sector Adjustment CreditASAL-1 First Agricultural Sector Adjustment LoanASF African Social ForumASUU Academic Staff Union of UniversitiesBBC British Broadcasting CompanyBHSS Basic Health Services SchemeBSAC British South Africa CompanyBSS basic social servicesBWIs Bretton Woods institutionsCAP Coalition Against the Privatization of Water (Ghana)CCM Chama Cha MapinduziCDF Comprehensive Development FrameworkCedi Ghanaian currency (GHC)CODESRIA Council for the Development of Social Science

Research in AfricaCOSATU Congress of South African Trade UnionsCSG Child Support GrantCWSD Community Water and Sanitation DivisionDFID Department for International Development (UK)DFRD District Focus for Rural DevelopmentDIRM Directorate of Investments and Resources MobilizationEAC East African CommunityEACSO East African Common Services OrganizationERC Economic Recovery CreditERP Economic Recovery ProgrammeERP Education Reform ProgrammeESA Education Sector AnalysisESAF Enhanced Structural Adjustment FacilityESAP Economic Structural Adjustment ProgrammeETF Education Tax FundFCUBE Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education ProgrammeFET Further Education and Training

xv

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GATS General Agreement on Trade in ServicesGCF gross capital formationGDP gross domestic productGDS gross domestic savingsGEAR Growth, Employment and RedistributionGER gross enrolment ratiosGHS Ghana Health ServicesGNI gross national incomeGNP gross national productGPHA Ghana Ports and Harbours AuthorityGWSC Ghana Water and Sewerage CorporationHDI Human Development IndexHIPC heavily indebted poor countriesHIV/AIDS human immunodeficiency virus/acquired

immunodeficiency syndromeHPI human poverty indexHSSP Health Sector Strategic PlanIBRD International Bank for Reconstruction and

DevelopmentIDA International Development AssociationIDASA Institute for Democracy in South AfricaIFC International Finance CorporationIFIs international financial institutionsIGU Income Generating UnitILO International Labour OrganizationIMF International Monetary FundIMR infant mortality rateISI Import Substitution IndustrializationLGA local government areaMDGs Millennium Development GoalsMTEF medium-term expenditure frameworkMU Makerere UniversityN Naira (NGN) – Nigerian currencyNDE National Directorate for EmploymentNEDLAC National Economic Development and Labour CouncilNEPAD New Partnership for Africa’s DevelopmentNER net enrolment ratiosNGO non-governmental organizationNHIS National Health Insurance SchemeNIEO New International Economic OrderNLC National Liberation Council

xvi List of Abbreviations and Acronyms

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NPE National Policy on EducationNPEP National Poverty Eradication PlanNRA National Resistance ArmyNU Nairobi UniversityNWSSP National Water Supply and Sanitation PolicyOECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and

DevelopmentOPEC Organization of the Petroleum Exporting CountriesPAPSCA Programme for Alleviation of Poverty and Social

Costs of AdjustmentPER public expenditure reviewPHC Primary Health CarePIP policy ineffectiveness propositionPPP purchasing power parityPRSPs Poverty Reduction Strategy PapersR Rand (ZAR) – South African currencyRBDAs River Basin Development AuthoritiesRDP Reconstruction and Development ProgrammeRMSM Revised Minimum Standard ModelRNPE Revised National Policy on EducationRPL recognizing prior learningSAC Structural Adjustment CreditSADC Southern African Development CommunitySADCC Southern African Development Coordination

ConferenceSAL structural adjustment loanSAPs Structural Adjustment ProgrammesSDA social dimensions of adjustmentSETAs Sector Education and Training AuthoritiesSIP Strategic Investment ProgrammeSOEs state-owned enterprisesSSA sub-Saharan AfricaTANU Tanganyika African National UnionTZS Tanzanian shilling (Tanzanian currency)UAC United African CompanyUBE universal basic educationUDSM Dar es Salaam UniversityUEA University of East AfricaUNCTAD United Nations Conference on Trade and DevelopmentUNDP United Nations Development ProgrammeUNES University of Nairobi Enterprises and Services Ltd.

List of Abbreviations and Acronyms xvii

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UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

UNICEF United Nations Children’s FundUNRISD United Nations Research Institute for Social

DevelopmentUPE Universal Primary EducationUPN United Party of NigeriaUS United StatesUSAID United States Agency for International DevelopmentUS$ United States dollarVAT value-added taxVTCs Vocational Training CentresWHO World Health OrganizationWSSCC Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative CouncilWSSD World Summit for Social DevelopmentWTO World Trade OrganizationZ$ Zimbabwean dollar (ZWD)ZANU Zimbabwe African National UnionZECA Zimbabwe Employment Creation ActZIMPREST Zimbabwe Programme for Social and Economic

Transformation

xviii List of Abbreviations and Acronyms

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Notes on Contributors

’Jìmí (Olújìmí) Adésínà is Professor of Sociology at Rhodes Universityin South Africa. He is the president of the South African SociologicalAssociation. His research interests are in the areas of the political econ-omy of Africa’s development, Social Theory, Labour Studies, and SocialPolicy. Among his published works are Labour in the Explanation of anAfrican Studies (1994), ‘Sociology and Yoruba Studies’ (2001), State-Capitaland Labour in Nigeria’s Oil Industry (2006), and African and DevelopmentChallenges in the New Millennium (2006).

Rosemary Atieno is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Develop-ment Studies, University of Nairobi, Kenya, with a research focus onDevelopment Economics. She was the leader of the technical team thatwrote the Kenya Human Development Report 2001: Addressing Social andEconomic Disparities for Human Development, the third Kenya HumanDevelopment on ‘Participatory Governance for Human Development’ andthe African Peer Review Mechanism in the Socio-Economic Thematic Area.Rosemary received her PhD from the University of Giessen, Germany.

Patrick Bond is Director of the Centre for Civil Society at the University ofKwaZulu-Natal. He works with activists in several countries on social policy,political economy, global governance and environmental justice, and hasauthored several recent books, including Looting Africa (2006), Talk Left,Walk Right (2006), Elite Transition (2005) and Against Global Apartheid (2003).

Chachage Seithy L. Chachage Until his death on 9 July 2006, C.S.L.Chachage was Professor and Head of the Department of Sociology atUniversity of Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. He received his academic train-ing in Tanzania and Scotland, and held research and teaching appoint-ments in various universities, including the University of Cape Town.He was Chair of the Scientific Committee of CODESRIA and until hisdeath a member of its Executive Committee. He had published exten-sively on development policies and practices, and the changing forms ofaccumulation in Tanzania.

Abdul-Ganiyu Garba is a Senior Lecturer in Economics at the AhmaduBello University (Zaria, Nigeria). He was educated at Ahmadu Bello andIbadan. He teaches microeconomics, macroeconomics and econometrics,and has research interests in macroeconomic management, that philosophy

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and methodology of economics, global interdependence, developmentthought and policy. Among his published works are three edited books,several monographs, and over forty papers, including ‘An Essay on Phi-losophy and Methodology of Economics’ published by the NigerianEconomic Society (NES) in Teaching of Economics: The Cutting Edge ofKnowledge (2003).

Fred T. Hendricks is the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at RhodesUniversity. He is a Professor of Sociology and the current and foundingeditor of the African Sociological Review. He has taught at the universitiesof Cape Town, Western Cape, Johns Hopkins (United States), Uppsala(Sweden) and at Rhodes University. He is a past president of the SouthAfrican Sociological Association.

Oka Obono is Lecturer at the Department of Sociology and Fellow of theCentre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Ibadan, where heteaches Research Methodology, Social Theory, and Policy Development.Formerly of the University of Calabar (1990–7) and Brown University,United States (2000–02), he is Temporary Adviser to the World HealthOrganization and the African Programme on Onchocerciasis Control,and National Consultant to the Joint United Nations Programme onHIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) on the African Centre for HIV/AIDS Management.His research includes health programme evaluation, civil society impactassessments, population monitoring and policy analysis.

Alfred Ouma Shem is an analyst at the Kenya Institute for Public PolicyResearch and Analysis. He holds a PhD in Economics from the Universityof Cologne and a MA (Econ) from Kenyatta University. He was a lecturerat Egerton University and has conducted research in finance, small andmicro enterprises, social, macroeconomic and monetary policies andillicit trade.

Bola Udegbe is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Psychology,University of Ibadan, Nigeria. She is an industrial/organizational psycholo-gist and teaches in Psychology and Humanitarian and Refugee Studies.She has served in research and teaching capacities in African Studies cen-tres in Nigeria, Bordeaux, the James Coleman Centre of African Studies inLos Angeles, and the African Studies Program of the University of Cali-fornia at Davis. Her published works include Dynamics of Leadership inContemporary Nigerian Communities (2001) and Dialogue on Leadership inNigeria (2001).

xx Notes on Contributors

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1In Search of InclusiveDevelopment: Introduction’Jìmí O. Adésínà

1

1.1 Introduction

This chapter provides an overview of the research project on Social Policyin Late Industrializers: Sub-Saharan Africa and the Challenge of Social Policy.Eight studies were commissioned, focusing on four regional and linguisticclusters, and organized around two sets of thematic concerns. East Africa,Southern Africa, and West Africa formed the regional cluster, but thiswas supplemented by a study of selected francophone West and CentralAfrican countries. The thematic foci of the studies are education andlabour market issues on the one hand, and health, water, and sanitationissues on the other. The concern of this chapter is not so much to sum-marize the findings from the studies; it is more concerned with tyingtogether some of the themes that have emerged from the studies, andreconnecting these to the conceptual issues in social policy broadly, andbetween social policy and development concerns, specifically. The con-cerns are tied up in section 1.4 of this chapter with a reflection on sixessential elements or imperatives in rethinking social policy in sub-Saharan Africa. The imperatives, as is our research project, are based onthree normative concerns: inclusivity, development, and democracy –where ‘public reasoning,’ as Amartya Sen (2004) puts it, is foundationalto the ordering of public and civic relationships.

For the purpose of our analysis, we define social policy as the collectivepublic efforts at affecting and protecting the social well-being of thepeople within a given territory. Beyond immediate protection from socialdestitution, social policy might cover education and health care provision,habitat, food security, sanitation, guarantee some measure of labour mar-ket protection, and so on. The idea of a tolerable, minimum level of liveli-hood and decency is intuitive and socially constructed; and normative

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(ideological) rather than technical. These define the links between eco-nomic and social policies; the desirable system of social relations andgovernance; and the specific instruments for achieving the perceivedminimal level of well-being. But, unlike much of the framing of socialpolicy issues in the global North, social policy in sub-Saharan Africa hasnot been defined by the guaranteeing of a minimum level of social well-being through social insurance, unemployment insurance, state guaran-teed old-age pension, or pronatalist social provisioning. Rather, it hasbeen largely defined by publicly guaranteed or mediated access to healthcare and education; much of the old-age pension or provident fund schemeis tied to formal sector employment, contributory or fully funded retire-ment pension scheme for public sector employees. While we will reflect onpension schemes, the concern of the project and this chapter is largelywith the issues of healthcare and education.

In section 1.2 of this chapter, we provide the conceptual and methodo-logical framework for the research programme. In section 1.3, we reflectat length on the research findings and core arguments; these are tiedtogether by the author’s independent survey of secondary sources andreflection on the existing body of knowledge in the field of social policy.The fourth and the final section of the chapter involves a reflection onrethinking social policy in the sub-Saharan African context.

1.2 Sub-Saharan Africa in retrospect: background to the project

There has perhaps been no other time in Africa’s four decades of post-colonial statehood, than now, when the crisis of social development seemsso pervasive. In the two decades between 1981 and 2001, 134 million peo-ple dropped below the poverty line, putting the total number of peopleliving in poverty (US$2.15 a day poverty line) at 516 million or 77 per centof the population (Sachs Report 2005). While there was an 8 per centreduction in the number of people living in poverty worldwide, sub-Saharan Africa registered an increase; the proportion of the population liv-ing in absolute poverty (less than US$1.08 per day) in the reference periodwas the highest of any region in the world: 46 per cent or 313 million, upfrom 45 per cent a decade earlier or 227 million; an increase of 86 millionpeople (Sachs Report 2005: 16). Of the countries listed as having the leasthuman development index, 81 per cent are sub-Saharan African countries(UNDP 2002). Even if one were to quarrel with the estimation techniqueused in the report,1 the idea of the region’s association with poverty andcharacterisation as a development wasteland is dominant.

2 Social Policy in Sub-Saharan African Context

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In specific social development outcomes, there is considerable uneven-ness. Between 1980 and 1994/97, Primary School enrolment fell from 81per cent to 78 per cent (World Bank 2001c). Excluding Nigeria and SouthAfrica, primary school enrolment declined from 73 per cent in 1980, to67 per cent in 1994/97. Aggregate figure for secondary school enrolmentrose from 15 per cent in 1980 to 27 per cent in 1994/97. Again, whenone excludes Nigeria and South Africa, the improvement in secondaryschool enrolment over the period becomes marginal: 14 per cent in1980 and 17 per cent in 1994/97. The probability of survival to the ageof 65 years is lowest of all the regions of the world (UNDP 2002: 177).Per capita gross national income declined at an annual rate of 0.6 percent between 1988 and 2000. Added to this is the dominant perceptionof SSA as a region plagued by genocidal conflicts, civil wars, and theHIV/AIDS pandemic. This perception is shared by both the politicalleaders, analysts, and the media.

Yet such characterizations of the region hide three important issues inany analysis of social policy and outcome in the development process.First is the problem of time sensitivity. The economic growth figures forthe region have not always been this anaemic. Indeed given the perceptiontwo-and-a-half decades ago (that the 1970s was a period of stagnation anddecline), the pre-1980 period has turned out to be what Adedeji (2002)referred to as ‘the golden age’. Average growth rate for sub-Saharan Africawas 4.3 per cent over the period 1967 to 1980 – which was comparable toAsia and Latin America over the same period (cf. Mkandawire 2001b). Bycontrast Gross National Product, for the region, declined at an annualrate of 10 per cent between 1980 and 1990 (UNDP 1996). What is signifi-cant about the pre- and post-1980 disaggregation of performance data isthe shift in the understanding of and nature of macroeconomic and socialpolicy, the nature and the role of the state, and the primary source andnature of incentives. Regardless of the spin that is being put on the experi-ence of Africa since the 1980s, the negative impact of macroeconomicand social policy instruments is evident.

Secondly, the aggregate regional statistics hide significant variations inthe composition of the various economies, the macroeconomic perform-ances, and social development outcomes. For instance, agricultureaccounts for only 3 per cent of South Africa’s gross domestic product,while in Zimbabwe it is around 20 per cent. Uganda’s economy is heavilydependent on robusta coffee production and agriculture accounts for over42 per cent of its GDP. Botswana, on the other hand, is dependent on dia-mond extraction, with agriculture accounting for less than 4 per cent ofits GDP in 2000 (World Bank 2002a). There is also the question of size.

’Jìmí O. Adésínà 3

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In 2000, South Africa and Nigeria account for 50 per cent of the GDP (incurrent US$) of the whole of sub-Saharan Africa – with South Africaaccounting for 75 per cent of that proportion. Ghana and Nigeria expe-rience sharp fluctuations in international oil prices differently. Similarly,there are wide variations in social development outcomes. Using the 2000data, the population living in poverty, using national poverty lines, rangedfrom 26 per cent in Zimbabwe to 86 per cent in Zambia.

Third is the paradox of the lack of fit between macroeconomic indica-tors of performance and social development outcomes. Understandingsocial policy outcomes requires more intimate knowledge and under-standing of the nature of social forces in a territory that impact on orshape social policy making and the realisation of outcomes (cf. Kangas1992: 27). Nigeria and South Africa have relatively strong civil societyorganizations – especially their labour movements – that make the ter-rain of social policies highly contested. But both countries, for differentreasons, show remarkably divergent internal variations in social devel-opment outcomes and profiles – the one regional, the other racial.

The linkages between economic growth and social development out-comes, and the way in which we conceptualize the interaction havebecome increasingly central to the development debate in the last twodecades (cf. Mkandawire 2001a). After several years of vilifying the state,the idea of a developmental state is back on the policy agenda. Clearly,the challenge of a developmental state, that is democratic – howeverdefined in relation to economic growth and the nature of State/Marketinteraction – remains a compelling issue for sub-Saharan Africa. It is inthis context that we have seen a rash of global declarations and com-mitments on a range of social policy outcomes: basic education, sani-tation, health care, and so on. It is to this challenge of a democraticdevelopmental state and implications for the social development/eco-nomic growth nexus that I turn.

Conceptual and methodological framework of the network

The work of the Africa Group was shaped by a specific conceptual andmethodological framework. We understand social policies to be specificand deliberate policies (enacted and pursued) that positively impact onsocial well-being and security. Critical areas of focus therefore will beeducation, health and sanitation, and social security. The latter we willdefine more widely to include social insurance, pension schemes, andpolicies directed at reducing socioeconomic vulnerability. There are fourcritical conceptual dimensions to the research programme of the regionalnetwork. The first dimension is the understanding that social policies do


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matter. The second dimension is the idea of a virtuous relationship betweeneconomic development consideration and improvements in socialdevelopment outcomes. The study by Kangas and Palme (2000) showsthat even in the OECD countries, social policies matter. The extent ofgeneral reduction in poverty and the dampening of the poverty cyclesare important outcomes of specific social policies in the various coun-tries. Further, studies on the linkages between social policy outcomesand economic growth show that at both microeconomic and macroeco-nomic levels, social development outcomes have beneficial effects oneconomic growth (Mkandawire 2001a); and that economic growth thatis oriented towards social equity and redistribution ensures the sustain-ability of growth. Where macroeconomic policies fail to pay attention tosocial policies, they not only undermine the microeconomic basis ofgrowth, they are likely to weaken the social and political basis of sus-tainable economic growth.2

It was also clear at the design phase that our studies would need to besensitive to the gaps that may exist between macroeconomic policies,social policies and social policy outcomes. In other words, between theintended and unintended outcomes of social policies, and social forces thatimpact on this. The widespread collapse in industrial output, escalationin poverty prevalence, and the disintegration (at least severe shrinkage) inadministrative capacity might not have been the intended consequencesof adjustment policies but the collapse resulted nonetheless – this aspectbetween policy intention and outcome is most dramatic in the area ofsocial service provisioning – that is, in health and in education. Yet thevariation in social development outcomes, among the adjusting countriespoint to the importance of human agency in mitigating the worst impactsof a debilitating policy environment and a country’s ability to manoeuvre(cf. Hutchful 2002). Even among non-adjusting countries, social develop-ment outcomes have proven to be quite varied.

This leads us to the third dimension (of the conceptual framework) ofour research programme, namely paying attention to the nuanced explo-ration of the social and political contexts of social policies and their out-comes as a fundamental aspect of the research programme. This requiresattention to the nature of ‘elite’ politics and those of allied social forces;the configuration and orientation of social forces within the ‘civil soci-ety’ that shape (initiate, contest, enact) social policies. There is, how-ever, no a priori assumption of virtuous ‘civil society’ forces confrontingvicious state forces.

The fourth dimension concerns the combined effects of time sensitivityand spatial disaggregation in making sense of social policy ‘transitions’


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and outcomes. Given the recurrence of Afro-pessimism in any discussionof sub-Saharan Africa, we need to pay attention to temporal disaggrega-tion and discontinuities in social policies and social policy environmentsacross the region. It is, broadly, possible to identify at least three distinctphases: (a) late colonialism, (b) post-colonial contexts until 1980 or early1980s, and (c) post-1980; and the variations within each phase. Theimplications for Southern African countries like Zimbabwe and SouthAfrica is that their post-colonial period coincides with the post-1980phase for most of sub-Saharan Africa. An important dimension of thephases is the macro-political logic that drove social policy and equityconcerns. In spite of what has been said about the preponderance ofautocratic states in the pre-1980s post-colonial phase, and the labellingof States and State agents, there is little doubt about the widespread con-cerns with nation building among state agents – especially in the topechelons of the polities. An appreciation of this concern is important formaking sense of very autocratic contexts such as Banda’s Malawi orKenyatta’s Kenya. The extent to which the recent spate of violent socialupheavals in countries like Côte d’Ivoire derives from the falling awayof nation-building concerns should be an important consideration forresearchers considering specific country situations. Julius Nyerere might bevilified for the ‘failure’ of Ujamaa, but it is as a nation-builder that hewould probably be remembered by history (Mkandawire 1999; Mazrui2002; Mamdani 2002). Equity considerations were therefore not onlyvertical, in class terms, but horizontal, in ethno-religious terms. Consid-erable intra-country disaggregation will be required in countries likeNigeria that have highly disaggregated national political systems withhighly differentiated social policies.

From a methodological perspective, the agenda that was set for theresearch programme was not so much to generate new primary data as tocreatively interact with and make sense of secondary data, while beingconscious of the limitation and strength of each data source. Here, theunderstanding of social and political contexts of the data sources isimportant. Beyond this – and a methodological-conceptual issue – is theneed to go beyond description. Researchers in the network were chal-lenged to locate their specific sectoral works within the wider policymak-ing contexts as well as give explanatory and theoretical focus to their works.

Within this framework one study was concerned with overall concep-tual issues and macroeconomic policy directions, focusing on the dom-inant or ruling ideas on development that shaped each phase ofsub-Saharan Africa’s post-colonial history, and how these ruling ideasshaped economic and social policies. A second set of studies focused on


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health, water and sanitation dimensions of social policy, while a thirdexamined education and labour market policies. Using comparativetechniques, these studies examined clusters of countries in East Africa,Southern Africa and West Africa.

1.3 Social policy in sub-Saharan African context

In this section we discuss the major findings of the studies undertakenwithin the framework of this project in sub-Saharan Africa. While the stud-ies are comparative, the basis of comparison has been sub-regional – i.e.,inter-country comparison within each of the three sub-regions – here wedraw lessons across countries and between sub-regions, and sometimesdraw illustrations from countries that were not the focus of the individualstudies. Further, while the individual studies are thematic in focus, we seekhere to draw lessons within each thematic area as well as across the themes,including the implications of the insights that Abdul-Ganiyu Garba’s study(Chapter 2 in this volume) of ruling ideas and the politics of policy enforce-ment affords us. A major gap in the individual studies concerns social secu-rity and/or social insurance. Apart from the traditional employment-basedcontributory old-age pension schemes for those in the private ‘formal sec-tor’ or non-contributory scheme for those in the public service, new healthinsurance schemes are being rolled out across several sub-Saharan Africancountries since the various studies in this collection were commissioned.The latter part of this section provides a review of some of these schemes.The insight from Garba’s schematic discussion of ruling ideas and theirimplications for economic and social policy is important for our analy-sis of these new pension and health insurance schemes.

Ruling ideas, policy advice, and the politics of sovereign rentiercapitalism

Garba identified three ruling ideas that have shaped economic and socialpolicy thinking and practice in post-colonial sub-Saharan Africa. Thefirst he identified as the Nationalist discourse and paradigm of socialpolicy; the second strand is broadly associated with the works of MaynardKeynes; the third strand is associated with neoclassical economics: eco-nomic thinking and policies that privilege market-transactional mecha-nisms for allocating resources. Within the broad stream of developmenteconomics, the ‘nationalist paradigm’ can be regarded as being out of themainstream.

Unlike the other two broad discursive approaches, the Nationalistapproach was driven by three core values: an ‘explicit commitment to


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high moral standards’, a ‘people-centred’ approach to development, and apan-African orientation. The pan-African orientation was both ethicallydriven and pragmatic or instrumental; ethically driven in the moral com-mitment to ending colonial occupation of the continent. The moralcommitment informed the allocation of scarce resources to the liberationproject, even if ‘at the expense’ of national or local economic and socialinvestment. It was pragmatic because of the concern for overcoming thedebilitating impact of the fragmentary nature of state territories in thepost-colonial context. The small states and small markets, and the frag-mentary infrastructure and resource endowment, combined to informthe regional approach to development. The moral commitment alsoinformed the effort to ensure ‘Better Life for All’, even if only rhetorically,which underscored the anti-colonial and post-colonial social pact. Garbaidentified Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere with this developmentpolicy strand, which differed from the mainstream modernization think-ing in that it was more Afrocentric and less about following the growthpath of the North-Western European and North American countries. The1980 Lagos Plan of Action was the first real continental effort in the direc-tion that Nkrumah (1961, 1964) envisaged – i.e., an immediate concernwith crafting a continental development agenda. The political ferment ofthe immediate anti-colonial and post-independence venture resonatedquite greatly with a generation of African intellectuals with a radical pan-African focus, ‘in which’, as Ki-Zerbo (2005: 84) puts it, ‘we opted forimmediate independence, the United States of Africa and a socialismthat had to be premised on local realities, interests and values’. It pro-duced some early attempts at creating regional economic communities,such as in East Africa, and attempts at dissolving the colonial boundariessuch as the Ghana–Guinea union in 1958, and the Ghana–Guinea–Maliunion shortly thereafter. In the wider geopolitics of the immediate post-independence context, however, this was a minority: the CasablancaBloc of the integrationist pan-African states and political leaders wereconfronted by a more introverted and conservative Monrovia Bloc. Thelatter was defined by the Cold War politics of the West. The Africanunity that emerged in the form of the Organization of African Unity wasone constructed around a minimalist project of ending colonial rule andinteraction within existing colonial boundaries. The feasibility of thepan-Africanist ‘nationalist’ developmental project is one that Garbaquestioned, especially in light of the local and global constraints, as leastas seen from the ‘game-theoretical framework’ within which Garbaorganized his discussion. As he puts it, ‘the failure meant that each [sub-Saharan African country] coexisted within a global political-economic


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system unilaterally even when the system was dominated by two antag-onistic power blocs’.

There are, however, two distinct and dominant concerns that cut acrossthe ideological divide – although by no means generic: these are the con-cerns with economic growth and national unity. The ‘eradication of the“unholy trinity of ignorance, poverty, and disease” was a central compon-ent of the nationalist agenda’ (Mkandawire 2005a: 13), and economicgrowth was seen as a means for doing so. The reality of having inheritedvery weak or non-existent human resource prerequisites for embarking onthe campaign meant that there was a second imperative for the synergybetween social sector expenditure and economic growth. For example, fora country whose economy depended mainly on mining, Zambia at inde-pendence did not have a single indigenous mining engineer. Chachage(Chapter 3, this volume) made a similar point about Tanzania. At inde-pendence Congo-Kinshasa, a country larger than Western Europe, hadonly thirty university graduates.3 Social spending on education, forinstance, was clearly not only about the moral imperative of overcomingthe legacy of colonialism but a sine qua non for the human resources needsof a modern economy. While there might have been differences in thedegree of commitment to this broad project, ideological orientation (fromthose committed to liberal capitalism, radical socialism, to those with asocial democratic commitment), and the policy mix that was consideredappropriate, the links between social expenditure and economic develop-ment was largely seen as immediate. The link between the social and theeconomic was neither a residual for catching citizens when they experi-ence market failure in command over entitlements nor a proactive protec-tion against the loss of living standard to which citizens had grownaccustomed. The concern with national unity and ‘nation building’ waspartly in reaction to what was considered the divisive ethnic policies of thecolonial regime. The murder of Patrice Lumumba, on 17 January 1961 – inthe context of the Moise Tshombe-led secession of the Katanga Province –and the role played by a range of international4 and domestic forces, pro-foundly marked the psyche of a generation of African nationalists. WhileMkandawire (2005a: 12) has pointed to its implications for the ‘perceptionof ethnicity and regional claims that “Tshombes” and “Katanga” were seenbehind every movement challenging the authority of the central govern-ment’, it produced a contrary result in many countries. From Senegal toKenya, social expenditure played an active role in the efforts to createnational unity and social cohesion. The nation-building agenda wasdefined by efforts at developing a new generation of citizens committed tothe ‘nation-state’5 rather than the ethnic or the regional. Public spending


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on education and schooling policies were often designed to reduce hugeinter-regional variations in educational accomplishments and enhancenational unity. In several countries – from Malawi to Tanzania, Nigeria,Ghana, and Senegal – the schooling strategies involved bringing youngpeople of different ethnic or regional backgrounds together in secondaryschools, and even more so at the university level. The policy involved aconscious effort to create a new ‘elite’ that grew up, within the educationalsystem, with shared experience of young adulthood, in the hope that thiswould develop a trans-ethnic leadership corps. Admission into top publicsecondary schools and national universities involved deliberate policies ofbringing together young people from different regional and ethnic back-grounds. The schooling policy went hand-in-hand with an active use ofpublic expenditure either through ‘free education’ (or publicly-fundedschooling) or use of scholarships and bursaries to provide access. Innational or sub-national contexts where there was strong commitment toactive social policy of this nature, the social development outcomes werequite significant and beyond what the conventional mapping of socialindicators against economic indicators might suggest.

If the nationalist projects of nation building and growth provide theagenda or ends, the means were shaped by a changing pattern of rulingadvice. In the period between the 1950s and the 1990s, Garba identifiedfour distinct, often contradictory, regimes of policy advice. The diagnosesundergirding them ranged from market failure to government failure,policy failure, and more recently, institution failure. The policy adviceranged from promoting state as the primary agent of change to the vili-fication of the state; from getting the price right to getting institutionsright. What is, however, common and constant across the policy regimesis the nature of the lead agents: visiting mission, foreign advisers, andstate agents of the global North! Within the game-theoretical frameworkin which he analysed the relationship, Garba identified the emergenceof ‘sovereign rentier capitalism’ and its politics. Garba identified ‘sover-eign rentier capitalism’ as a largely post-colonial shift in the nature ofglobal capitalism in which rent-extraction and rentier relationship isorganised around sovereign lending and/or borrowing.

The history of sovereign rentier capitalism of the last half a centuryleads us to conclude that orthodox development thought and develop-ment advice wittingly or unwittingly served sovereign rentier capital-ist that primarily sought their services in creating and sustaining thedemand for sovereign rentier capital. Influential development theo-ries such as the vicious cycle of poverty model deepen fatalism by its


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conclusion that poor nations are trapped in a vicious cycle and can-not get out without outside help. The gap models then help to createthe demand for sovereign rentier capital by encouraging a habit ofdependence as the model offer sovereign borrowing as a panacea toclosing savings-investment and foreign exchange gaps.

(Chapter 2, this volume, pp. 77–8)

We might add that the ‘capital’ that sovereign rentier capitalist institutionsoffered was not only financial (aid or investment) but intellectual – policy advice. The ‘most ingenious strategic move of (the sovereign rentiercapitalist) is its successful marketing of itself as a donor’ (Garba, Chapter 2,p. 83). The overall objective is ‘control of policy making’ (Garba,Chapter 2, this volume, p. 78; Toye 1991). From Nigeria, throughZimbabwe in the early 1980s, and South Africa in the 1990s, the consis-tency with which the ‘donor-sovereign rentier’ establishment havesought to maintain control over policymaking is remarkable (cf. Yesufu1969; Mhone and Bond 2001; Bond 1998, 2000; Gumede 2005). Thedegree of policy intrusiveness has been defined by ideological affinity ofthe local state-agents and the external policy merchants, and fiscal vulner-ability that results from a combination of domestic policies and externalshocks. Ghana and Zambia were early examples of the crisis (externalshock and the resulting fiscal vulnerability) that would become endemicafter the 1980s. In Ghana’s case external shock occasioned by the collapseof commodity price of cocoa created the fiscal vulnerability (Hutchful2002: 9–10) and the ideological coup that overthrew the government inFebruary 1966. The ‘big-push’ strategy of the Nkrumah government hadbeen financed by the favourable international commodity price of cocoa.The ideological affinity between the new military regime and the fiscalvulnerability made Ghana the first country in the region whose policy-making process came under the direct control of the InternationalMonetary Fund (IMF); and the consequences of the stabilization and theliberalization project were severe indeed. The deflationary bias it put atthe heart of public finance policy persisted for a long time. In Zambia’s casevulnerability was without ideological affinity, but the severe trade andbudgetary crises that followed the sharp fall in the price of copper andsimultaneous steep rise in the price of oil in the mid-1970s created similarresults.

For much of the 1960s and 1970s, however, the IMF played little partin shaping fiscal and broad economic policies in most African countries.The dominant policy advice was from the World Bank, private, multi-lateral, and national policy advisers. In the period after the 1980s, the


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degree of policy autonomy by the local authorities and policy advisers –autonomous of the Washington Consensus establishment – diminished.In the pre-1980 period the more Keynesian of these policy regimes res-onated with the more expansive nationalist objective in the underliningargument of the virtuous relationship between equity and efficiency,especially in the context in which much of the socialist orientation wasinspired or influenced by Fabianism, and a widespread commitment tosocial expenditure. Even so, profound changes have occurred in the pol-icy space available to most governments in sub-Saharan Africa. The multi-polar world of the 1960s and the 1970s offered a greater diversity of‘learning sources’ in comparison to the highly diminished policy spaceof the late twentieth century.

The transitional phase had involved demands by the ‘donors’ andBretton Woods Institutions (BWIs) for the replacement of personnelresponsible for economic policies, and the use of ‘brute economic force . . .to push through certain idea. The unresponsiveness of African bureau-cracies and their apparent unwillingness to learn has been used to justifythe conditionalities that have accompanied policy making. It has alsoled to the hijacking of key policy-making agencies by internationalfinancial institutions’ (Mkandawire 2004: 5). The personnel change waspart of a much wider agenda of reshaping not only Africa’s economiesbut also her polities and civil societies (Adesina 2004); an agenda thatinvolved active efforts at developing, financing, and promoting a newcadre of economists, and the deployment of local experts that belong tothe market-centric ‘epistemic’ community. Capacity building became amechanism for proselytizing and cloning (Mkandawire 2004; Adesina2004). Elson and Cagatay (2000: 1354–7) argued that the policy frame-work itself was shaped by three biases, with fundamental implicationsfor social policy and social development outcomes: ‘deflationary bias’,‘male-breadwinner bias’, and ‘commodification bias’. We will return tothis in the next section of this chapter.

The period from 1960 to 1980 witnessed a significant improvement ina range of social development indicators (cf. Table 1.1).6 Figure 1.1would suggest that, for sub-Saharan Africa as a whole, much of thedomestic investment from 1960 to 1980 was financed largely by domes-tic resources. The contrast with the next twenty years (1980 to 2000)could not be sharper: the adjusted R2 for the strength of fit betweengross capital formation and gross domestic savings for the periodbetween 1960 and1980 is 0.978, in contrast to 0.253 for the periodbetween 1980 and 2000.7 Removing Nigeria from the dataset used forthe analysis did not alter the trend or the shape of the graph, at least not


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13

Table 1.1 Selected social development indicators of some sub-Saharan African countries

Life expectancy Child death rate Adult literacy (%) Primary school Basic needs indexat birth (years) (aged 1–4) enrolment

(% age group)1960 1982 1960 1982 1960 1985 1960 1981 1960 1982

Botswana 40 60 23 13 33 72 42 102 48 80Cameroon 37 53 28 16 19 56 65 107 48 73Chad 35 44 60 37 6 25 17 35 25 42Congo 37 60 23 10 16 63 78 156 52 78Côte d’Ivoire 37 47 40 23 5 43 46 76 37 61Gabon 36 49 34 22 12 62 100 202 54 72Ghana 40 55 27 15 30 53 38 69 45 66Kenya 41 57 21 13 20 59 47 109 47 76Lesotho 42 53 29 17 59 73 83 104 64 77Madagascar 37 48 45 23 34 68 52 100 45 73Malawi 37 44 58 29 22 41 30 62 33 55Niger 37 45 45 27 1 14 5 23 25 39Nigeria 39 50 50 20 15 42 36 98 35 68Somalia 36 39 61 47 2 12 9 30 22 34Sudan 39 47 40 23 13 20 25 42 34 49Swaziland 38 54 33 27 29 68 58 110 48 74Uganda 44 47 28 22 35 57 49 54 50 59DRC (Zaire) 40 50 32 20 31 61 60 90 50 70Zambia 40 51 38 20 47 76 42 96 48 76

Source: Ghai (1987: 4); cf. Adesina (2006).

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14

0

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1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000Years

Cur

rent

US

$ (b

illio

ns)

Gross domestic savings (current US$) (bill) Gross capital formation (current US$) (bill)

Figure 1.1 Gross domestic savings and gross capital formation in sub-Saharan Africa

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for the period between 1960 and 1980. The post-1980 period showedtwo patterns. One is significant volatility in gross domestic savings andgross capital formation; the other is that gross capital formation out-stripped gross domestic savings. The post-1980 period, we should bereminded, has been the season of ‘stabilization,’ adjustment, and donormonopoly of the policy landscape; the period of neoliberal ascendancy.

As Mkandawire (2001b: 303) pointed out, ‘despite the many distor-tions of import substitution, until the second “oil” crisis many Africaneconomies had performed relatively well’. The nationalist consensuswas not exclusively that of politicians. Hutchful (2002) noted that theIMF-inspired ‘shoddy treatment of the state enterprises by the’ NationalLiberation Council (NLC) military junta and the sell-off of state (essentiallynational) assets sparked off public protest; the stabilization programmefound little favour with the domestic business community.

Changing dynamics of education provisioning

In the survey of changing education policy environment in the threeEast African countries (Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda), Chachage (chap-ter 3, this volume, pp. 89–90) noted the influence of the wider, domi-nant, perception of education as ‘a means to social and economicdevelopment at national level, a way to employment opportunities atpersonal level and, a means to forging national cohesion and reducinginequalities left by the colonial legacy’. Education was not only about thenational strategy for raising literacy levels and providing the humanresources needed for the economic growth objective, it was the individ-ual’s means of securing a better livelihood. Unemployment was not con-sidered a major national problem in many of the countries in theimmediate years of post-independence; the misalignment of skillendowment relative to the need of the economy was something that neededto be rectified by educational training. Apart from the problem of financing,the labour market structure did not make unemployment insurance a majorpolicy objective. Universal access to primary education was a distinct objec-tive of various governments from Ghana, south western Nigeria, toTanzania. In the early post-colonial years, this expansive approach to edu-cation provisioning coincided with rapid expansion in the economies.Even in Tanzania, whose narratives these days might suggest that the crisisstarted as soon as the Ujamaa programme was launched, manufacturingoutput grew at a healthy 7.5 per cent per annum between 1965 and 1975.In this Botswana has had an inverted experience – with considerableresource constraint and poor resource base in the early years of its post-independence experience until the 1970s, when income from diamonds


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generated the phenomenal rise in GDP and government revenue. In thecase of south-western Nigeria, ethical commitment to universal access toprimary education, and a publicly-funded education system, wasfinanced in an environment of tight fiscal resource management; onshoe-string budget (Awolowo 1960). Zimbabwe, with a similar post-independence commitment to expansion of access to education, facedan initial few years of massive fluctuations in the monetary and fiscalpolicy conditions (Kadhani 1986).8

The crisis that was to become emblematic of the early 1980s emergeddifferently in the countries. In Ghana it was a function of externalshock, made worse by the deflationary and aggressive liberalisation thatfollowed the NLC regime’s tie-up with the IMF. In Uganda, it was funda-mentally the crisis of erratic and murderous policies of the Idi Amin’sregime – with the expulsion of 70,000 Ugandans of Asian descent in1972 and the abduction and murder of the vice chancellor of MakerereUniversity as emblematic of a maniacal regime; the Ugandan Asians werethe mainstay of Uganda’s manufacturing and service sectors. In Tanzania’scase, the impact of the second oil shock of the late 1970s was com-pounded by the war against Idi Amin’s army which had invaded north-west Tanzania. While the war freed Uganda and the world of Idi Amin,it was at a cost of US$50 million to the Tanzanian fiscus.

The impact of the policy response to the crisis on social policy differedsignificantly from one country to another. Early response in Ghana, inthe 1960s, was aggressive in the impact on public spending on socialservices; a phenomenon most dramatic in the Nigerian case where pub-lic spending on education plummeted under the regime of IbrahimBabangida. In Ghana and Zimbabwe, from the 1980s onwards, therewere efforts to protect social spending, even as the government of JerryRawlings in Ghana sought to constantly negotiate the policy marginswith the BWIs – and in several instances ‘played the BWIs’ game’ (cf.Hutchful 2004). In this regard Botswana’s example shows real growth inthe economy accompanied by real growth in social spending. An affirm-ation of education as a social right also involved quality funding at alllevels of the education system. The paradox of South Africa is quiteinteresting in this respect: faced with the enormous challenges ofredressing the inequities of the Apartheid order and early speculativerun on its currency in 1996, the government opted for tight monetaryand fiscal regime, with negative implications for real spending on edu-cation: public spending as a percentage of the GDP declined from 6.3per cent in 1990 to 5.7 per cent (UNDP 2004). Real per capita recurrentexpenditure on education declined, annually, by 1.2 per cent between


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1997 and 2002 – from R793 in 1997 to R719 in 2002; and per capitagross fixed investment (capital expenditure) declined from R73 in 1995to R60 in 2002 (UNDP 2003: 24).9 The South African case is all the moresignificant since the economy grew between 1990 (when the countrywas in the throes of ending the racist sociopolitical order) and 2001; sodid the resources (tax-based revenue) needed by the post-Apartheid gov-ernment to address the crises of equity and poverty.

We can discern three trends in the attempts to fill the resource gapthat emerged at various times (in different countries) in the late twenti-eth century, which reflect different levels of commitments within thestate and ability of social movements to influence the state (i.e., issues ofagency): utter neglect, shifting the burden to the citizens, or efforts toprotect social spending, typified by Nigeria, Tanzania, and Ghana,respectively. Nigeria’s case involves the neglect of social spending,resulting in a decline in education spending from 6 per cent of the GDPin 1980, when the economy was at the peak of its performance, to 0.65per cent in 1995. In real terms, this was a decline in public spending fromUS$3,719 million in 1980 to US$181 million in 1995 (World Bank2005). Ghana, with similar experience of adjustment, more doubled itspublic spending on education (Udegbe, Chapter 5). Public spending oneducation increased from US$132 million in 1980 to US$273 million in1995 (World Bank 2005). At the other end Tanzania experienced a dra-matic shifting of the burden of education financing (especially at thetertiary level) to citizens and the institutions. The aggressive ‘re-com-modification’ of access to education in Tanzania and Uganda hasreceived complimentary attention, as examples of institutionaldynamism (cf. Court 2000). Chachage’s ‘frog-eye’ view of the experi-ences revealed not only the massive degradation in the teaching andresearch environment, but the extent to which the market logicdeployed at Dar-es-Salaam University and Makerere University under-mined the rationale for education – a qualitative link that was central tothe Nationalist mission or the functioning of universities in the developedcountries. In the effort to improve funding in the face of declining gov-ernment subvention universities in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, haveexperienced a dramatic rise in student numbers, even with a decliningstaff complement. The dramatic increases in student enrolment havebeen ‘financed’ by overcrowding, decline in quality of teaching and theneglect of research activities (especially in relation to the pre-crisisperiod). While ‘user fee’ was promoted on the grounds of equity ofaccess and the need to shift resources away from tertiary to primary educa-tion, there is little evidence that such equity of access is being achieved


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when compared to the quality of education at all levels in the 1970s. Onthe other hand, there is ample evidence of a sharp decline in budgetaryfunding for social services in many countries and that user fees havebeen used to substitute for budgetary allocation. The fiscal concern withrestraining public spending – often to service external debt – has beenthe primary objective rather than equity. In Makerere the percentage ofprivately-sponsored students, in the total student population, grew from32 per cent in 1993 to 86 per cent in 2000 (Obong 2004: 111). Both Ghanaand Zimbabwe have also seen significant rises in user charges levied oncitizens who seek social services.

We will address user-fee charges as a mechanism for social servicesfinancing in greater depth later. Anecdotal evidence suggest that theattempt at meeting the basic education targets under the MillenniumDevelopment Goals (MDGs) is resulting in the same crisis of overcrowd-ing, since increased in enrolment numbers is not matched by increase innumber of classrooms and teachers. In Uganda, with the introduction ofuniversal primary education,10 in 1997, enrolment increased from 3.06million in 1996 to 7.6 million in 2003, a remarkable feat, but the num-ber of students per classroom was an astonishing 110 in 2000, decliningslightly to 94 children per classroom in 2003 (Bategeka 2005)! What isinstructive about the universal basic education – not even primary edu-cation – is that fifty years after the Action Group government (Westernregion, Nigeria) rolled out what is universally acknowledged as a verysuccessful universal primary education effort, and over forty years afterseveral Nationalist governments took the same road, African countriesare embarking on a journey to their own past: without a full acknowl-edgment, within the same community framing the agenda, of the impactof 25 years of structural adjustment in reversing the post-colonial socialdevelopment outcomes. There is a second paradox – while universal pri-mary education involved more focused and programmatic planning, andlargely financed by domestic resources, the reinvention of past achieve-ment is driven by donor-financing, fiscal conservatism, and project-focused! Again, we will return to this in a moment.

An assessment of the education aspect of social policy objectives wouldreturn us to the twin issues of gender disparity and the role of agency in thepattern of achievement. While illiteracy rates have declined significantlyacross sub-Saharan Africa there are wide differentials in such achievement.Across the countries that were the focus of this study, female illiteracy ratesare on average twice that of men – with the exception of Botswana, wherethe female literacy rate is slightly higher than that for males, and SouthAfrica, where the difference is marginal. This is even more remarkable in


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the case of Zimbabwe, whose literacy achievement was significant; show-ing what public commitment to social objectives can produce, even in theface of adverse economic performance.

Nigeria’s abysmal lack of public commitment to education is made evenworse by the quality of spending. At the time that spending declined to0.6 per cent of the GDP, much of this was for personnel costs. It wouldseem that without the agitation by education sector unions to ensurepayment of salaries, although sporadic, social spending in this sectormight have been worse.

Equally important, for making sense of social policymaking, is the roleof agency: the lack of fit between basic economic indicators and educationachievement. Botswana, with five times Zimbabwe’s per capita income,has a lower level of literacy; its literacy rate is similar to that of Tanzania,whose per capita income is less than a tenth of Botswana’s. South Africa’sliteracy rate is about the same as Kenya’s, although South Africa’s economy


Table 1.2 Gender and illiteracy rates (% of people age 15 and above) 1970–2000

Countries 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000

Nigeria Adult Total 79.9 74.1 67.1 59.3 51.4 43.7 36.1Adult Female 89.8 85.0 78.5 70.4 61.9 53.1 44.3Adult Male 69.4 62.7 55.2 47.6 40.4 33.8 27.6

Ghana Adult Total 70.5 63.6 56.3 48.9 41.6 34.9 28.5Adult Female 83.4 77.0 69.5 61.5 53.0 45.0 37.1Adult Male 57.1 49.7 42.5 36.0 29.9 24.5 19.7

Kenya Adult Total 59.3 51.7 43.8 36.2 29.2 23.0 17.6Adult Female 74.2 66.4 57.3 48.0 39.2 31.1 24.0Adult Male 44.2 36.9 30.0 24.2 19.0 14.7 11.1

Tanzania Adult Total 64.3 57.8 50.9 43.8 37.0 30.8 24.9Adult Female 80.2 73.8 66.1 57.5 49.0 41.1 33.5Adult Male 47.3 40.8 34.9 29.4 24.4 20.0 16.1

Uganda Adult Total 63.7 59.1 54.2 49.2 43.9 38.2 32.9Adult Female 78.3 73.6 68.4 62.7 56.6 49.8 43.2Adult Male 48.6 43.9 39.4 35.0 30.7 26.3 22.5

Botswana Adult Total 53.9 48.1 42.5 36.7 31.9 27.4 22.8Adult Female 52.4 46.7 40.9 34.9 29.7 25.0 20.2Adult Male 55.9 49.8 44.4 38.7 34.2 30.0 25.5

South Africa Adult Total 30.2 26.9 23.8 21.1 18.8 16.7 14.7Adult Female 32.0 28.5 25.2 22.3 19.7 17.5 15.4Adult Male 28.4 25.3 22.4 19.9 17.8 15.8 14.0

Zimbabwe Adult Total 42.5 35.8 29.9 24.2 19.3 15.2 11.3Adult Female 51.0 43.8 37.5 30.9 25.0 20.1 15.3Adult Male 33.8 27.6 22.1 17.3 13.4 10.2 7.2

Source: World Bank World Development Indicators 2002 (CD).

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and GDP are eight-and-a-half times and almost six times, respectively,that of Kenya. The comparative difference between Botswana andZimbabwe is particularly evident in the public sector commitment, withBotswana spending 2 per cent of its GDP on education, compared with10 per cent in Zimbabwe; Ghana, with a slightly lower per capita incomethan Nigeria, spends more than four times its share of GDP on educa-tion. As noted earlier, while public spending on education declined dra-matically in Nigeria, it more than doubled in Ghana, at a time whenboth countries were under structural adjustment. In Nigeria the argu-ment by state functionaries and their BWI handlers regarding the imper-ative of rebuilding the country’s education infrastructure has focused onprivate sector provisioning and ‘cost sharing’ rather than significantlyincreased public spending on the sector. A similar crisis is evident in thehealth sector, which we will discuss shortly. The relationship betweenthe level of inequality in the various countries and public spending oneducation speaks to the dynamics of social pressure that can be brought tobear on public policy makers. Again this is an issue that we will addressbelow, shortly.

The paradox of the last twenty years, which was supposed to correctthe distortions in the economies of sub-Saharan African countries, istwofold. First is the rise of unemployment among university graduates,within the context of a general rise in unemployment. Studies fromGhana to Tanzania and South Africa record this phenomenon. Theimpact of a deflationary macroeconomic policy approach and aggressiveliberalization on the one hand, and the ‘public sector’ reform with mas-sive cutbacks in employment levels, on the other, have led to a phenom-enal rise in unemployment in several countries – with Botswana as thelone exception among the countries covered in our studies. Hendricks(Chapter 4) pointed to the South African case where the rate of unem-ployment among Black graduates is much higher than the average levelof unemployment. The growth path that South Africa pursued since1996 has been particularly regressive in the area of employment; inMarch 2003, the official unemployment level was 31 per cent, up from 20per cent in 1996. Much of this was the result of the monetary and fiscalpolicies that encouraged a capital-intensive production system; whileoutput rose between 1996 and 2002, employment stagnated or declinedwhile the number of new entrants into the labour market grew (UNDP2003). The second paradox is the phenomenal rise in the number of expa-triate ‘technical assistance’ personnel that have poured into sub-SaharanAfrica. Chachage cited a 1990 report on Kenya, which showed that of the324 technical assistance positions that were filled by expatriates local


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21

Table 1.3 National wealth, public spending and social policy outcomes (2002)

GDP GDP per Adult Public expenditure Infant Public expenditure Human Gini Gender-related(US$Bill) capita literacy on education as mortality on health as % poverty index development

(US$) % of GDP rate** of GDP� index index

Kenya 12.3 393 84.3 6.2 78 2.2 37.5 44.5 0.486Tanzania 9.4 267 77.1 3.2* 104 2.7 36.0 38.2 0.401Uganda 5.8 236 68.9 2.5 82 2.1 36.4 43.0 0.487Botswana 5.3 3,080 78.9 2.1 80 3.7 43.5 63.0 0.581South Africa 104.2 2,299 86.0 5.7 52 3.5 31.7 59.3 0.661Zimbabwe 8.3 639 90.0 10.4 76 4.4 52.0 56.8 0.482Nigeria 43.5 328 66.8 0.9* 110 1.2 35.1 50.6 0.458Ghana 6.2 304 73.8 4.1 57 2.3 26.0 30.0 0.564

Sources: UNDP Human Development Report 2004.� UNDP Human Development Report 2005.Notes: All data refer to 2002 except: * is 1990 data; **Infant mortality figures are per 1,000 live births.

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Kenyans could easily have filled 204 of such positions (Chachage, chapter3 this volume). A study in Tanzania showed that, in 1988, the salary andemolument of the expatriate staff consumed US$200 million out ofUS$300 million in technical assistance support for the year 1988; thetotal personnel cost of the Tanzanian public sector employees (civil ser-vants, teachers, health workers, etc.) for the year was US$100 million!

Apart from South Africa, none of the other seven countries covered inour study has any unemployment insurance or wage protection schemein place. The result of unemployment is therefore likely to trigger a sig-nificant entitlement failure in these countries, which partly explains thesignificant increase in the number of people living in poverty in theregions. South Africa’s unemployment scheme dates back to the 1966Unemployment Insurance Act. In 2001 a new Unemployment InsuranceAct was enacted – a contributory scheme funded by payroll deduction,employers’ contributions, and funds appropriated by the South Africanparliament. The scheme, which covers non-public servants, excludesanyone working for less than 24 hours a month for an employer, non-South African citizens who are working on contract or a worker whoseincome derives from commission.11 On 1 April 2004, the Act was amendedto cover domestic workers.

Under Section 13(3) of the Unemployment Insurance Act, 2001, ‘acontributor’s entitlement to benefits . . . accrues at a rate of one day’sbenefit for every completed six days of employment as a contributorsubject to a maximum accrual of 238 days’ benefit in the four year periodimmediately preceding the date of application for benefits’. Benefits canbe claimed for unemployment, maternity leave, or periods of illness notcovered by the employer. Dependants of a contributor may also claimfrom the fund upon the death of the contributor. At the end of 2004 theUnemployment Insurance Fund had built up a reserve of R8.4 billion,and it ‘expected to exceed its actuarial valuation reserves by R500 million’by the end of the 2005/06 fiscal year.12 Net contributions to the fund wasR3.63 billion in 2003/4, against benefits claim of R3.28 billion; a signifi-cant turn around from 1999 when net contribution stood at R2.7 billionagainst benefit payout of R2.98 billion.13

Changing dynamics of health care provisioning

The comparative studies on the changing dynamics of health and relatedservices show similarities and distinct divergences when compared withthe education sector. Here, as in the case of the education sector, two pat-terns of social provisioning emerge: the pre- and post-1980s. As Table 1:3shows, child mortality (for children aged between 1 and 4 years) declined


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across sub-Saharan Africa, even for the more errant states like Mobutu SeseSeko’s Zaire. Much of this was achieved through the socialisation of con-sumption, especially at the level of primary health care services; socialspending on health was part of a wider objective of defeating the triad of‘ignorance, poverty, and disease’. In Tanzania, part of the reasoning behindthe policy of ‘villagization’ – concentrating rural communities in distinctvillages – was to benefit from the economies of scale that this brought inthe provision of social services and efforts to raise production. The moralcrisis of enforced concentration of the population, no matter its expectedsocial and economic benefits, and the mistakes made in the process, arethings that Mwalimu Nyerere himself readily accepted (cf. Mkandawire1999). Similarly, as Bond (Chapter 7) noted, the first decade of post-inde-pendence in Zimbabwe witnessed significant improvements in health indi-cators: infant mortality declined from 86 per 1,000 live births to 49;immunization coverage rose from 25 per cent to 80 per cent, and lifeexpectancy increased from 56 to 62 years.

As Atieno (Chapter 6) shows for East Africa, the under-five mortalityrate declined in Kenya from 98 for every 1,000 live births in 1970 to 81per 1,000 in 1980; in Tanzania it declined from 125 to 98 over the sameperiod. Within ten years of adjustment these improvements had beenreversed; even with the case of Uganda, under-five mortality rates hadrisen from 118 per 1,000 live births to 187 in 1990, 132 in Tanzania, and94 in Kenya. Maternal mortality more than doubled in Tanzaniabetween 1985 and 1990; in Uganda it rose fourfold within the sameperiod, in spite of the fact that in 1985 Uganda was in the grip of thecivil war. While maternal mortality fell back to lower levels in 1996, thenumber of women dying in childbirth was still higher than in 1985.

It was perhaps in the area of health care provisioning that the aggres-sive retrenchment of the state and cuts in social expenditure had itsmost damaging effects. The erroneous assumption of orthodox adjust-ment was threefold: one was to assume that there was a market in healthcare services to take care of the impact that the fiscal retrenchment ofthe state would create; the second was to assume, as unproblematic,resource endowment for all the citizens for procuring their health careneeds in the new marketplace; the third was to assume that publicresources spent subsidizing the citizens were a waste. The consequencehas been particularly grim across most of sub-Saharan Africa. People didnot as much fall through the net of social provisioning; they died! Theimpact on increased women’s burden in the care economy within thehomes has been pointed out by several researchers (cf. Elson andCatagay 2000). As Atieno’s figures show, the impact of the retrenchment


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of state provisioning was particularly damaging for women, both fortheir personal health care needs and also that of children becausewomen overwhelmingly bear the burden of nurturing and child care.The weight of health care provisioning shifted from the national fiscusto the end-users. Okuonzi (2004) showed that gynaecological andobstetrics services suffered particularly badly under this policy regime.

The shift from ‘stabilization-and-liberalization’ to the ‘social dimen-sions of adjustment’ (SDA) followed overwhelming evidence of the carn-age that adjustment was wrecking on child and maternal health in thecountries under adjustment, generally, but on Africa, specifically (cf.Cornia et al. 1987). The initial response was to focus on using a ‘safetynet’ for what was considered a short-term market failure to raise thelevel of social welfare. The social service delivery to address vulnerabil-ity was premised on ‘targeting’ the ‘deserving poor’ rather than univer-sal access. Retained within this period was the framework of the earlierphase which privileged market-transactional social policy provisioning,‘cost-recovery’, and ‘user-fee’ charges became the basis for accessingpublicly financed social services. All of the countries that implemented theBWIs’ adjustment programme implemented the user-fee (‘cost-recovery’,‘cost-sharing’) policy mainly in the areas of health and education. Botswana,a country covered in our study, implemented a user-fee policy in the areaof health care, even though it is not an adjusting country (Singh 2003;Hutton 2004; Pearson 2004).

Again, social policy was regarded largely as a residual aspect of publicpolicy. The widespread evidence was that even within the SDA pallia-tives levels of poverty continued to rise, and social development indica-tors continued to regress; generally adjustment policy was not working.This prompted a search for ‘explanations’ (cf. Garba, Chapter 2) and‘alternative approaches’ to liberalization. The attempt at establishing acomprehensive development framework (Wolfensohn 1999) and usingthe Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers as its delivery vehicle have notaltered the fundamental economic ontological discourse: the focus ofmacroeconomic policy in restraining public spending and ‘liberating’the market from dirigisme, or the ‘no-free-lunch’ logic that requires end-users to finance their social service consumption.

Studies continue to show that the claims about empowerment andconsultation with civil society are at best perfunctory. Both the BWIs andthe donor countries persist in pushing the same macroeconomic policyinstruments that failed to address the structural impediments in mostAfrican economies which created the vulnerability to external shocksin the first instance. Not only has there been a failure to sustain thepre-1980s regional growth rates; the capacity for sustainable recovery has


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been undermined even in successful adjusting economies (Adesina 2004,2005). In many ways we are back to the same current account and bal-ance of payment imbalances that were emblematic of the 1970s – whenimport bills for feeding the consumerist appetite of the middle class andurban areas escalated, even as export receipts stagnated or declined.While growth may be good for the poor and social policy broadly, thereis evidence that the BWIs’ policies have not been particularly good forgrowth, much less development (Weisbrot et al. 2000).

In countries already faced with declining household income and a ris-ing level of poverty, the imposition of user fees or ‘cost sharing’ had theeffect of mediating citizenship with capacity to engage in the market.Bond (Chapter 7) discussed at length the counterproductive impact ofthe ‘user-charges’ policy in the provision of water and sanitation serv-ices in South Africa; where people in poor neighbourhoods are forced toget water from deadly sources. The case of KwaZulu Natal Province in2002 – where the cost of responding to the cholera outbreak far out-stripped the outlay that would have been needed to provide the house-holds with clean water – is an important reminder of the dubiouscost–benefit analysis that underscores much of the aggressive neoliberalthinking. The shift in state policy, to universal provisioning of 6,000litres per month/per household, might be less than what the anti-poverty coalition (within and outside the ANC) bargained for, but it is akey reminder of how tentative, and often tenuous, is the effort at ‘dis-solving the public realm’ (Clarke 2004).

As Okuonzi (2004: 1629) notes:

Despite the theoretical benefits of such fees (equality, resource mobil-isation, quality of care, and efficient use of services), the reality wasstarkly different. The envisaged fund generation through user-feeswas clearly negligible, always less than 5 per cent of total healthexpenditure. There were no demonstrable benefits of these fees onthe quality or efficiency of social services.

As Pearson (2004) shows, even as a proportion of the recurrent budget inthe public health care sector (that the fees were supposed to cover), thecontribution of user fees was as little as 2 per cent; Guinea and BurkinaFaso that recorded 20 per cent and 15 per cent, respectively, were out-liers by a very wide margin. As Hutton (2004) shows, many of the argu-ments advanced in favour of the introduction of user-fee charges do nothold in sub-Saharan Africa. The argument that user fees will reduce thefrivolous use of services in a case in point; it started off with an invalidpremise: you first have to assume an ‘important level of frivolous use’(Hutton 2004: 67) for the argument to hold. Yet evidence would suggest


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that there was an initial condition of ‘serious underuse of services’(Hutton 2004: 67) created by several barriers to health care access suchas geography. User-fee charges added to the list of barriers to the ‘poor’that the policy claimed it would help. While fiscal constraints are oftencited for charging user-fees, and these constraints treated as exogenous(Mkandawire 2005b), it is useful to remember that the fiscal contractionof the state was itself the consequence of macroeconomic policies pur-sued within the wider adjustment programme. Massive reduction in tar-iff-based revenue, reduction in taxes and tax rates were two such casesthat undermined the fiscal base of the state.

In several cases, as Okuonzi (2004) noted in respect of health careservices, the state was discouraged from investing in health care services;the same applies in the area of education. Stephen Lewis’s (2005) recol-lection of his experience in this area during his 2005 Massey LecturesRace Against Time is worth quoting at length:

I remember being in Malawi in 2002 at a roundtable discussion withthe vice-president and a number of civil servants from the Ministry ofFinance. They were complaining bitterly about the limits imposed bythe International Monetary Fund on Malawi’s public sector pay levelsand hiring intentions. It was surreal: here you had a country with hugehuman capacity problems that wanted desperately to retain its profes-sionals in health and education, and increase their numbers, but theIMF wouldn’t allow them to do so. We’re talking about a sovereign gov-ernment, fighting the worst plague in history, with but a handful ofprofessionals: according to the minister of health, Malawi has one-third of the nurses it needs (4,000 instead of the 12,000) and perhaps10 per cent of the doctors (300 rather than 3,000) for a population of12 million. And they weren’t being allowed – I repeat, this sovereigngovernment wasn’t being allowed – to hire more staff and pay bettersalaries, because it would breach the macroeconomic straitjacket . . .

What makes me nearly apoplectic – and I very much want to say this – isthat the Bank and the Fund were fully told about their mistakes even asthe mistakes were being made. They were so smug, so all knowing, soincredibly arrogant, so wrong. They simply didn’t respond to argumentswhich begged them to review the human consequences of their policies.

The fact that poverty became increasingly entrenched, or that economieswere not responding to the dogma as the dogma predicted, made nodifference. It was a form of capitalist Stalinism. The credo was every-thing; the people were a laboratory.


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The purpose of this extended citation is not that the account in Lewis’slecture is new to most African scholars and administrators or thatAfricans and others have not written extensively about this; the rele-vance is that Lewis cannot be accused of being ignorant of the detailedinner workings of the international donor environment or the havoc thattwo decades of what the ‘social vivisectomy’ (Adesina 1994: viii), calledstructural adjustment and the politics of sovereign rentier capitalism,have done to Africa and continue to do.

As the macro-level data show none of the countries covered in ourresearch programme had a share of public expenditure on health (as apercentage of GDP) that approached 5 per cent in 2002. In Nigeria, witha huge population, spending on health was an abysmal 1.2 per cent ofGDP (up from 0.8 per cent the previous year).

Botswana’s spending on health is particularly instructive in decipher-ing the extremely low pattern of health spending and commitmentin most of the other countries; Zimbabwe’s ability to increase per capitaspending on health – part of a wider commitment to social spending,married often with user-fee charges, reflects the ‘off-and-on’, ‘flip-flop’relationship that it has with the BWIs. The crisis in the health sector isemblematic of the horrors of neoliberal fundamentalism and the politicsof the resurgent new imperialism (Adesina et al. 2006). The HIV/AIDSpandemic and the phenomenal way in which it has spread across muchof sub-Saharan Africa is emblematic of the massive entitlement failure ofhow the retrenchment of health provisioning capacity undermined thecapacity of many of the countries to cope with the pandemic. Theresponse of policy makers (local and international) has been slow inmost countries and the interventions of the international donor institu-tions seem to have become another mechanism for deepening the stran-glehold on the policy terrain of many African countries. The 45 per centincrease in public health spending in Botswana is largely in its attemptto cope with the human tragedy that the disease is unleashing on muchof East and Southern Africa. The 2005 report on HIV/AIDS prevalenceand the decline registered in Kenya, Uganda, and Zimbabwe would sug-gest that the quantum of spending is only one aspect of the response tothe crisis; leadership and civil society response are two other aspects.

In instances where user charges have been abolished, the impact hasbeen phenomenal. Okuonzi (2004: 1629) noted the instance of Swaziland:

Under political pressure, and with nothing tangible to show fromuser-fees, the policy was abolished by the government in 2001. Thesurge of more than 100 per cent in the use of public services soon


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after the abolition of the fees shows the extent to which poor peoplewere excluded from social services by an inappropriate policy.

As noted earlier, the introduction of universal primary education in 1997,in Uganda, led to a 73 per cent rise in total enrolment in the first year,and a 148 per cent rise by 2003 (Bategeka 2005).14 Budgetary restraint anda project approach – ad hoc responses to international goal setting, andthe whimsical shift in moods of the sovereign rentier forces – means thatthe increase in demand has not been met by commensurate resources orinvestment in personnel and infrastructure.

As the impact of the efforts to retrench the public realm in social pro-visioning has become clear, and the user charges have turned out to bemore ideological than financially sound, new efforts are being made tofind new mechanisms for funding national healthcare needs. InFebruary 2005 the Nigerian government launched the National HealthInsurance Scheme (NHIS). According to the announcement on the offi-cial website of Nigeria’s Office of Public Communications, the schemehas six components:

Contributors can access healthcare needs from approved public andprivate health service providers. Health Maintenance Organisations(HMOs) which are limited liability companies will be licensed by the


Table 1.4 Per capita government expenditure on health at average exchangerate (US$)

1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

Kenya 9 7 8 8 8Tanzania 6 6 6 8 7Uganda 4 5 4 5 5Botswana 73 76 78 85 106South Africa1 117 109 103 92 84Zimbabwe 33 17 24 26 61Nigeria 4 5 6 6 5Ghana 9 9 6 6 7

Source: WHO World Health Report 2005 (Current prices).Note: When converted to international purchasing power US dollar, South Africa’s healthsector spending shows a small increase. I have opted for prevailing exchange rate for tworeasons: PPP estimation is a function of the items in the basket; more importantly, the healthsector is heavily dependent on import for both recurrent and capital spending – once wediscount for wages and salaries.

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NHIS to facilitate the provision of healthcare benefits to contributorsunder the Formal Sector Social Health Insurance Programme to inter-face between eligible contributors, including voluntary contributorsand the healthcare providers.15

Formal sector employees will have 5 per cent of their basic salary deductedas contribution while the employers will contribute 10 per cent. Benefitswill cover the member, his/her spouse and up to four children. Othercomponents of the scheme are the Urban Self-employed Social HealthInsurance Programme for the self-employed – which has to be occupa-tion-based and involve more than 500 members. A monthly contribu-tion by each member of between N120 and N150 (about US$1 orUS$1.25 per annum), would cover treatment for ‘the most common ail-ments like malaria, typhoid fever, diarrhoea etc.’. The Rural CommunitySocial Health Insurance Programme has the same framework; the onlyexception is the occupational category. The programmes for childrenunder five years of age and those with permanent disability similarlyrequire contributions for entitlement to benefits.

The scheme in Ghana follows the same broad principle as the Nigeriancase.16 However, the scheme in Ghana makes it compulsory for all thecitizens to join the scheme, and the scheme is to be funded by a combi-nation of a ‘2.5 per cent Health Insurance Levy on selected goods andservices’ and member contributions. Annual contribution is scaled upfrom zero-contribution for those defined as ‘core poor’, 72,000 cedis(about US$8) for the ‘very poor’ and the ‘poor’, rising to 480,000 cedis(US$52.7) for the ‘very rich’. Even at its best the scheme would facedefaulting by the ‘very poor’ and ‘poor’ in meeting their contributions.There is also the stigma for those defined as ‘core poor’ who try to accesshealth care services, but have made no contributions to the scheme.There is no evidence of an appreciation of the need to commit fundsfrom the fiscus to the scheme, which would prevent those defined aspoor from falling through the cracks. As with similar cases, where quasi-market logic is inserted into social provisioning, the denial of healthcare service for those who default on their contributions will happen atthe level of service providers. In the meantime, state functionaries andthose backing the scheme would use the scheme to justify less publicspending on health care – the same crisis that beset user fees.

For formal sector workers, 2.5 per cent of their social security contri-butions will be paid into the scheme. There will be a waiting periodof six months, between the commencement of contribution and access-ing health care services (similar in coverage to the Nigerian scheme).


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However, the benefits will not include the supply of AIDS drugs, thetreatment of chronic renal failure, heart or brain surgery, or ‘cosmetic’services such as hearing aids, dentures, or beauty surgery. At district levels,the collection of contributions is to be managed by Health InsuranceCommunities with Health Insurance Committees. Those seeking exemp-tions will have to get them through the committees. This raises thequestion of who defines one person as very poor, another as core poor,and the other as very rich. The scheme is another example of the abuseof the concept of ‘community’ within the neoliberal policy discourse –pecuniary advantages replace relations of mutual support and obliga-tion. ‘Community-based’ interventions and resource management areprimarily to mobilize the people in policing and enforcing complianceto a system of social relations which ontologically renders individuals asatomised economic agents. In the World Bank’s more comprehensivemanual (Aiyar 2001) ‘community empowerment’ and ‘community-driven development’ are so closely tied to the local collection of usercharges, fees, and taxes that the very idea of ‘community’ as a networkof mutual support, protection, and obligations disappears. Foregroundingthe idea of community ‘empowerment’ is the ‘taken-for-granted’ idea oflimiting public financing through the fiscus. The perception that publicwelfare provisioning will crowd-out community-based or informalsocial support system is often used to justify not extending publicsupport to the vulnerable. As the study by Heemskerk, Norton, andDehn (2004) shows this claim is largely without basis. If anything,‘public welfare systems and informal insurance systems are mutuallysupportive . . . Receipt of public transfers not only enhances the capac-ity to self-insure, but a more central position in social exchange net-works also facilitates access to public welfare’ (2004: 951). The impact isparticularly positive for women (Heemskerk et al. 2004: 952). As theyconcluded, ‘informal reciprocity networks are social glue of poor com-munities and help their members cope with a great number and varietyof shocks . . . where they do work, these systems generate feelings ofpride and empowerment’ (2001: 953). What is instructive about theschemes in Ghana and Nigeria is that there is no defined contributionfrom the fiscus to fund the scheme. Indeed, in the case of Ghana, thegovernment is using ‘funds from HIPC’17 to facilitate setting up thescheme (Ghana 2005).

While we have discussed the new insurance schemes in relation tohealth care provisioning in Nigeria and Ghana, we intend these as illus-trations of a much wider programme. Across several African countries,new insurance schemes have bee designed and implemented to cover


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pension schemes – largely involving a shift from non-contributory tocontributory schemes.

Social policy regime and access: the inequality and poverty nexus

The current pursuit of the claimed objectives of reducing poverty andinequality through a raft of targeted mechanisms is paradoxical in thelight of the existing body of knowledge, about the relationship betweeninstitutional frameworks or models of social policy on the one hand, andpoverty and inequality on the other hand. Korpi and Palme’s (1998)analysis of the data from 11 OECD countries shows that ‘the lowestincome inequality is found in the three encompassing countries –Finland, Norway, and Sweden’ (1998: 674).18 By contrast ‘the highestincome inequality figures occur in the basic security and targeted model,especially in the United States, Switzerland, Australia and UnitedKingdom’ (Korpi and Palme 1998: 674). The poverty rate for 1985 in theUnited States was 17.8 per cent among those between the ages of 25 and59 years, compared with 1.6 per cent for Finland and 2.6 per cent forSweden. The Gini coefficient of inequality was 0.18 in Sweden, for those65 years or older compared with 0.35 in the United States. Indeed, a tar-geted model of social policy was found, on the whole, to be much smallerfor countries pursuing targeted policies than those pursuing ‘encompass-ing’ policies. The paradox of targeted models, as Korpi and Palme (1998:672) noted, is that in ‘discriminating in favour of the poor . . . it creates azero-sum conflict of interest between the poor and the better-off workersand the middle classes who must pay for the benefits of the poor withoutreceiving any benefits.’ The ‘paradox of redistribution’ is that:

by providing high-income earners with earnings-related benefits,encompassing social insurance institutions can reduce inequality andpoverty more efficiently than can flat-rate or targeted benefits . . . themore we target benefits at the poor only and the more concerned weare with creating equality via equal public transfers to all, the less likelywe are to reduce poverty and inequality.

(Korpi and Palme 1998: 681–2)

The social cohesion effect of ‘encompassing’ models – and somethingclose to the nation-building incentive for ‘encompassing’ access duringthe early nationalist phase – was also found to be more robust:

The targeted model . . . tends to drive a wedge between the short-termmaterial interest of the poor and those of the rest of the population,


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which must rely on private insurance. It gives the better off categoriesno rational basis for including the poor, and leaves the poor to trustin the altruism of the more fortunate.

(Korpi and Palme 1998: 672, emphasis mine)

In the face of mounting poverty induced by the neoliberal policies ofthe sovereign rentier regime, the response has been to address povertyby ‘targeting’ the ‘deserving poor’; a mantra that serves to obscure theprimary concern which maintains harsh spending restrictions on thefiscus. The claim that preference for ‘targeting’ was motivated by equityand efficiency consideration rests on a dubious logic: the assumptionwas that through a more efficient and focused use of resources it waspossible to do more with less (Mkandawire 2005b). This was not just theBWIs but the ‘donor’ countries generally, on whose aid flow andapproval many of the adjusting countries have come to depend – as thefiscal basis of the state had been progressively undermined. Mkandawire(2005: 21–2) drew attention to the paradox of the contradictory logicdeployed by the World Bank against universalism in social policy and infavour of it in economic policies:

. . . the preference for targeting [in social policy] by the BrettonWoods institutions is rather paradoxical, especially in light of theiraversion to targeting in many economic activities, such as selectiveindustrial policies or credit rationing in the financial sector . . . TheWorld Bank’s dislike for such selectivity and targeting was partlybased on the arguments that they would not be market conforming . . .The more serious arguments deployed against targeting revolved aroundpossibilities of information distortion, incentive distortions, moralhazard and administrative costs, invasive loss, and corruption. It wasasserted that governments did not have the knowledge to pick win-ners or to monitor the performance of selected institutions. In situa-tions of asymmetric information, beneficiaries of such policies wouldconceal the information necessary for correct interventions.

Yet the same governments that are bedevilled with weak administrativecapacity were supposed to implement a scheme of targeted social policy.The information asymmetry and incentive distortions that were used tojustify universalism in economic policy did not feature in the discussionof social policy. That anyone would consider targeting an appropriatepolicy option given a context in which 77 per cent of the population livesbelow US$2.15 a day beggars reason – especially where the macro policies


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of the policy vendors are largely responsible for the massive entitlementfailure in the first instance.

Extensive studies on targeted social policies have demonstrated thateven in the most administratively robust state, with extensive surveillancesystems, targeting suffers from Type I error (under-coverage, where thosedeserving are left out) and Type II error (leakages to those outside the tar-geted group). In the case of South Africa, Type I error for Child SupportGrant was 90.7 per cent nationally; and it was in those provinces with thehighest levels of poverty that under-coverage was most acute: 93 per centin KwaZulu Natal Province, 91.9 per cent in the Eastern Cape Province,and 91.7 per cent in Limpopo Province (Samson et al. 2005: 8). The oner-ous procedure for accessing the grant (documentation, forms to fill, andmeans-test) in mostly rural provinces, and for people who are less able tonavigate the bureaucracy is, without doubt, the primary factor behind ofthe low take-up rate. Extending the reach of CSG was inspired by socialforces within and outside the state – and involved active campaigns to goout and register people in the rural communities and poor urban and peri-urban neighbourhoods – leading to a significant decline in Type I error(Samson et al. 2005); even so 42.5 per cent of those eligible in 2004 did notreceive the grant. Similarly the Type I error for disability grant was 83.9 percent in 2000, down to 55.4 per cent in 2004. By contrast, in the case of theold age pension scheme, which has a more ‘encompassing’ approach19

Type I error was 17.7 per cent in 2000 and 10.2 per cent in 2004. Further,Samson et al. (2005) estimated that old-age pension alone accounts for 47per cent of the closure of the poverty gap in South Africa.

The argument that Europe moved from limited to encompassing cov-erage as a justification for the targeting in sub-Saharan Africa suffersfrom a simple problem. In sub-Saharan Africa, the limited coverage,often based on labour market location as in Europe, was the subject ofimmense attacks in the ascendance of neoliberal discourse: urban bias,urban coalition, etc. Rather than move from the limited coverage modelto the encompassing model, the policy choice was to dismantle the limi-ted coverage that existed; through severe retrenchment of state/publicspending and market-based entitlements. Current efforts to address theenormous negative impact of the retrenchment of the state remainpatchy (basic education, for instance), involve continuing preference formarket-based access, or self-financed insurance schemes such those dis-cussed earlier.

There is overwhelming evidence that user fees mediated accessto social service and means-testing as vehicles for targeting involveconsiderable administrative costs (Jones et al. 1983; Korpi and Palme


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1998; Vandemoortele 2000; Pratt 2001; Mkandawire 2005b). But theonerous procedure for eligibility or access is often designed precisely toexclude (Pratt 2001). In an effort to discourage the ‘non-poor’ from ben-efiting, the mechanisms adopted in most targeted programmes tend tostigmatize and adopt mechanisms that are ‘disempowering and evenhumiliating’ (Mkandawire 2005b). As Amartya Sen (1999: 13) noted:

Any system of subsidy that requires people to be identified as poorand that is seen as a special benefaction for those who cannot fendfor themselves would tend to have some effects on their self-respectas well on the respect accorded them by others.20

Yet, in the design of the mechanism for social service provisioning stigmaavoidance is a crucial concern (Titmuss 1968; Jones et al. 1983). Thehumiliation that comes with queuing and being identified as welfarerecipients or to secure exemption from user charges has often meant thatthe take-up rate is often low. Even for countries with the capacity, the‘process of mean-testing or identifying the “deserving poor” is ofteninvasive and stigmatizing’. The attempt within the World Bank projectsto shift the mediation of targeting mechanism to community level doesnot avoid the crisis of stigma and humiliation. As Mkandawire (2005:26) noted, neither community-based targeting nor geographical target-ing (meant to improve on earlier forms of targeting) diminishes theinherent problem of targeted social policy or how ‘abuse and humilia-tion [become] common features of citizens’ interaction with the state’(Mkandawire 2005b: 26). Recipients identified on the basis of suchmeans-test are further exposed to the powers of what Sen called ‘minorpotentates’: the petty authoritarianism of minor bureaucrats, commu-nity power brokers, and local chieftains. Again, the perversion of powerrelations is not only about the vulnerability of the poor generally, but itis often profoundly gendered. The power brokers and chieftains are morelikely than not to be men and the victims women – the widow in thecommunity; women who are more likely than not to be less literate.

Many issues suggest the imperative of the shift to a more ‘encompass-ing’ social provisioning framework. In the context in which between 50per cent and 70 per cent of people in many sub-Saharan African coun-tries are living in extreme poverty (less than US$1/day) selectivity or atargeting variant makes little administrative or financial sense.Secondly, in most of the mineral-based sub-Saharan African economies,the distinction between taxpayers and beneficiaries of social servicesmakes very little sense – the overwhelming proportion of state revenue


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is from collectively-owned resources. The experience of countries likeNigeria is that as the neoliberals rolled back the state and championedthe mantra of ‘there is no free lunch’ – as if petroleum-based revenue isa particular individual’s property – the quantum of national financialresources available for discretionary (mis-)use increased, which in manyways fuelled corrupt appropriation of national resources. A more encom-passing entitlement to social services and protection will reduce themargin of resources available for such discretionary (mis-)allocation; itwould also reinforce the capacity of the citizens to demand services fromtheir governments. Third, locking those with voice into such provision-ing, especially with funding from the fiscus, ensures protection for thebudgetary allocation and the quality of service delivery as well. Acrosssub-Saharan Africa, what has developed over the last 25 years in the edu-cation and health care sector is a dual-system: an under-resourced andneglected public sector, and a private sector.

The paradox of this the dual system of social service delivery is that asthe neglect and underfunding take hold, the people with the voice andresources in society relocate to the private sector for their health careand education need; the quality of service in the public sector declinesfurther as does the commitment to invest in them – the senior publicservants and politicians source their health care needs and education fortheir children in the private sector or outside their countries, and thefurther the public service institutions declined. The public sector forsocial services is weakened because of the decline in investment andcommitment; it is then condemned for its inability to match the privatesector in the quality of service delivery – a classical case of a ‘self-fulfilling’prophecy! Anecdotal evidence in several countries show that thoseemployed in the public sector – especially when tied to teaching hospi-tal and medical school posts, moonlight in the private sector to aug-ment their incomes. The effect is that the private sector may provide theservice faster with steep charges but lack experienced medical experts oracademics and is on the whole rarely able to undertake the investmentneeded for a decent medical establishment. The result is a downwardspiral in the quality of service – not anywhere near what the public insti-tution offered in the 1970s, nor what their private sector counterpartswould offer in other parts of the world. The Gini index of inequalityreveals the persistence of sharp disparity in command over resourcesand poverty in many of the countries we studied. In Figure 1.2 I presenta radar chart of literacy, life expectancy, poverty and inequality. Whilethe collapse in life expectancy is a result of factoring the HIV/AIDSpandemic into the calculation, the others are direct results of how


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36

Botswana

0102030405060708090

100Literacy

Life Expectancy

Poverty

Gini

South Africa

0102030405060708090

100

Literacy

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Gini

Figure 1.2 Social development radar charts

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37

Zimbabwe

0102030405060708090

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Literacy

Life Expectancy

Poverty

Gini

Nigeria

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Literacy

Life Expectancy

Poverty

Gini

Figure 1.2 (Continued)

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38

Uganda

0102030405060708090

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Life Expectancy

Poverty

Gini

Ghana

0102030405060708090

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Life Expectancy

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39

Tanzania

0102030405060708090100

Literacy

Life Expectancy

Poverty

Gini

Kenya

0102030405060708090

100

Literacy

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Poverty

Gini


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sub-Saharan African societies have been reshaped in the last thirty years.Indeed, poverty and inequality rose sharply in these countries over thelast twenty-five years; South Africa and Zimbabwe are the exception tothis pattern due to the colonial racist order during the period.

Social policy, entitlement failure and social cohesion

In many ways, the last 20 years have highlighted the crisis of citizenshipand statehood in most African countries. The implications of the wide-spread deprivation and social development crisis, highlighted in section1.2 above, are evident in the rising number of state implosions andgenocidal conflicts. I do not wish to suggest that the adjustment policiescreated these horrendous events – the pogrom in Nigeria in 1966 andthe following civil war, and the earlier horrors in Rwanda in 1959 are twocases in point. However, I would suggest a link between the retrench-ment of state capacity for social provisioning and the crisis of statehood.The relationship between a state and its citizens is a web of obligationsand privileges; citizens’ stake in a polity is affected by the extent towhich the state is seen to be responsive to the needs of the citizens. Theretreat of state from social delivery (health care, education, human secu-rity, etc) undermined the relevance and the legitimacy of the state in theeyes of its citizens. In the absence of social policy-based engagementwith the citizens, the coercive face of the state becomes the dominant (ifnot the only) area of interaction with citizens. The rising inequality dur-ing the period did little to enhance the legitimacy or social linksbetween the dominant classes (‘elites’) and ordinary people. The firstwave of adjustment, typified as the ‘decade of greed’, provided avenuesfor the massive enrichment of individuals in a widening sea of humanvulnerability and deprivation. From Sierra Leone to Rwanda, the funda-mental questioning of the legitimacy of the state and the spilling over ofdifference into conflict, and conflict into genocide, occurred within thiscontext of declining legitimacy of the state. While not the ‘root cause’ ofthese conflicts and while domestic policy and leadership issues arestrong contenders, the retrenchment of the state at least served as thetrigger mechanism.

1.4 Rethinking social policy, beyond adjustment: thechallenge of inclusive development

I wish to conclude this chapter by highlighting six imperatives ofrethinking social policy in sub-Saharan Africa, beyond adjustment. This iswithin the central normative framework for our research programme – that


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of a state–society nexus that is developmental, democratic and sociallyinclusive (UNRISD 2001) and raises several possibilities. A socially inclu-sive state–society relationship is more likely than not to privilege equityconsiderations and strive for universal entitlements in social policymaking and implementation. A democratic state–society nexus is likelyto privilege popular engagement, transparency and accountability inpolicy making and execution. However, we conceptualize social inclu-sion and democratic ethos as a dimension of the ‘developmental’ ratherthan separate from it. These are important dimensions of what AmartyaSen refers to as the ‘ends of development’ (Sen 1999). As he furthernotes: ‘Development requires the removal of major sources of unfree-dom: poverty as well tyranny, poor economic opportunities as well assystematic social deprivation, neglect of public facilities as well as intol-erance or overactivity of repressive states’ (Sen 1999: 3).

While we have said a lot about the value of the Nationalist model ofthe symbiosis between economic and social policy, and the value ofsocial policy as a mechanism for securing social cohesion and nationbuilding, it was developmentalism that became increasingly authoritar-ian. It is often argued that it is the excessive developmentalism of thestate and obsession with nation building that was the source of authori-tarianism, single-party rule, and the shrinking democratic space.Hanging on the door of the state, as Joseph Ki-Zerbo (2005: 82) puts it,was the notice: ‘Silence, We are developing!’ The democratic objectiveand a civic public realm are foundational for the reconstitution of thestate–society nexus.

A second aspect is the developmental context itself, and there arethree compelling issues: the regressive economic policy driven by aneoliberal ontology; the debt crisis – in spite of what Gleneagles was sup-posed to have delivered; and the global trade regime, both within theWTO framework and in terms of the increasing scale and number of bilat-eral ‘economic partnership agreements’ that are foundationally damag-ing to Africa’s development prospects. As Ohiorhenuan (2000: 22) notes:‘Developing countries today face the additional burden of building capac-ities to project and protect national interests and to be more effectivenegotiators; to develop the capacity to comply creatively with agreedobligations and exercise their rights; and to put in place a whole panoplyof new institutional arrangements in order to be competitive.’

A third aspect, crucial for transcending the current crisis of state–societyrelations, is to transcend the false dichotomy that neoliberal discoursecreated regarding the experience of many of sub-Saharan Africa’s peoples.The state versus market discourse confused all that was not ‘private sector’


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with the state, missing the significant role that collective communityefforts in social provisioning played in the early post-colonial efforts ofmany countries, and some even under colonial rule, when communitiespooled resources to fund education of young men and women, providehealth care services, and so on. In several cases social provisioning inhealth and education involved the government and communities in apartnership (Cornia 1987b: 170–2). Reinventing this partnership, out-side the transactional logic of the neoliberal discourse, is important forthe ownership of institutions and programmes, but it must be one thatfundamentally addresses gender content of community relations andinteraction.

Rethinking social policy

I would like to suggest that a return to a broader vision of social policyis important for its long-term efficacy, development, and inclusive socialcitizenship. Reconnecting social policy to the wider development object-ives and the nation-building project is essential for sustainable socialpolicy outcomes, as it is for sustainable economic development.

First, it is difficult to see one’s way through the objective of povertyreduction, for instance, without improving the productive capacity ofthe economies. In 14 of the 16 sub-Saharan African countries classifiedas having low human development and for whom data exists, morethan two-thirds of the population live in poverty (UNDP 2002). While alot more can be done at lower levels of economic growth, as noted earl-ier, social policy objectives become sustainable when undergirded bysustained improvements in economic development; in much the sameway that sustained economic development requires sustained social pol-icy outcomes. The synergy between the two is enhanced with signifi-cantly reduced levels of inequality in society – to which both economicand social policy must contribute actively. There is a need to rethinksocial policy expenditure not as a gratuitous favour done to citizens butas investments in development and nation building or social cohesion.

The prevailing discourse (from NEPAD to the Blair Commission Report)mistakes ‘trade discourse’ for ‘development discourse’. When PresidentYouweri Museveni asserted that what Africans want is not aid but to‘trade our ways out of poverty’, I agree with him intuitively; the ques-tion, however, is ‘With what? Coffee?’ (Adesina 2002; Adesina et al.2006). Successful economic development involves not only quantitativegrowth in the economy but structural changes – and that requires a shifttowards industrial output, however much we may speak of the ‘knowledgeeconomy’. Maligned as ‘industrial policy’ is in the neoliberal discourse,


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the examples of China and India most recently, and the early industrial-izers (who now discourage SSA countries from engaging in industrialpolicies), are evident enough of the centrality of dynamic industrialismfor trading our ways out of poverty; these countries came to dominatethe world trade not on the basis of primary commodities but throughmanufactured output. Moving in that direction requires African coun-tries to mount a challenge against the current global trade regimes –both multilateral and bilateral. The shrinking of the trade and industrialpolicy space (Ohiorhenuan 2002; Chang 2005) is not a natural aspect of‘globalization’, but conscious and deliberate steps taken by the powerfulcountries to advance their own interests and those of their transnationalcorporations. The proposition of the late 1970s of a regional develop-ment approach, where African countries seek to internalise the engineof their development remains valid; it compels us to return to the LagosPlan of Action as our starting point.

Secondly, it is important to rethink social policy in its social cohesionand nation-building dimensions. The last two decades, have broughtthe imperative of nation building back on the agenda. From Sierra Leoneto Somalia, from Nigeria to Sudan, the crisis of social cohesion threatensthe foundations of many African states. Enhancing citizens’ stake intheir polities is not only about the exercise of civic rights but also aboutsocial citizenship. The Afrobarometer studies conducted by IDASA (CapeTown) show that across Africa citizens make a direct link between theirlivelihood and democracy. The retrenchment of state capacity not onlyaffects its capacity to deliver on social policy but the basic task of thephysical security of its citizens.

Thirdly, a move away from targeting and means-testing in social policyis important not only because of the debilitation and humiliation asso-ciated with targeting, but because we know that: (i) where social policyhas been developmental, improved social well-being, and social cohe-sion, more encompassing, universal access have been important; it secureswider commitment to sustaining it – especially where it is financed fromincome tax. (ii) A state–citizen nexus based on mutual exchange of obli-gations and privileges has a greater chance of securing social stability,which itself is valuable for sustained economic development. The urbanbias and narrow coverage that were the focus of the criticism againstuniversalism of the nationalist phase were not atypical among the lateindustrialisers (Korpi and Palme 1998; Esping-Andersen 2001; Kuhnleand Hort 2004; Mkandawire 2005b). Social protection grew outwardsfrom the social groups that were considered to be central to the industri-alization project. But moving up such, social policy ‘value chain’


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requires leadership and a state bureaucracy capable of sustained policymaking.

This brings us to the fourth point: the imperative of reconstituting thestate in its policy making capacity, and its ability to run the state, admin-ister society, and define the parameters of economic activities. There isan urgent need to overcome the creeping policy atrophy of the last 20years. As Peter Evans (1995: 3) noted: ‘Without the state, markets, the othermaster institution of modern society, cannot function.’ The ‘embeddedautonomy’ of a competent civil service has always been integral to a suc-cessful developmental agenda (Evans 1995). The reconstitution of thestate has to be part of a wider reconstitution of the public realm in whichthe horizontal and vertical relationships are driven by a democraticethos of participatory, rather than the perfunctory and technocraticideas of governance. Horizontal in the relationship within the civil soci-ety; vertical in the relationship between state and society. Simply fram-ing the issue in terms of leadership alone will not do or capture the crisisof the militarisation of social consciousness within the civil society orthe casual disregard for civic order.

Fifth, leadership matters; so does policy. Constructing social consensusaround a developmental project is fundamental: it calls for visionaryleadership that is locally grounded in Africa’s realities; it calls for puttingat the heart of our collective social contract social justice, equity, and thevicarious indignity that we should experience when others in our soci-eties contend with poverty and destitution. Social mobilization aroundthese values can only proceed on the basis of justice rather than charity,and it requires leadership in and outside the state. This takes me back tothe issue of agency raised earlier. Rather than a state versus ‘civil society’or state versus market, much of the expansive use of social policy in thepre-1980s period involved active agency of state functionaries in under-standing the links between social expenditure and economic growth(producing doctors, engineers, teachers, etc.) and promoting nationalunity illustrated by the schooling policy discussed earlier. While there aresignificant variations across countries in terms of depth and size of suchuse of social policy, there is sufficient evidence of shared use across sub-Saharan Africa. In many cases the commitment flowed from the socialpact that developed during the anti-colonial struggles. The differences inattempts to protect social expenditure (most glaring in the contrastbetween Nigeria and Ghana, discussed earlier) also reveal the differencesin the commitments of state functionaries and political leaders; again anissue of agency. Equally important for the nature of leadership – in thisinstance, leadership outside the state – has been the agency of the ‘civil


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society’ in protecting social spending. In countries from Nigeria toZambia and South Africa, labour movements have played significantroles in ‘persuading’ state functionaries to maintain or expand socialexpenditure. From Senegal to Tanzania, student movements were equallyimportant. The important thing is that structural variations alone do notexplain variations in social policy outcomes in the region; agencyremains an important factor. It requires leadership and policy commit-ment within and outside the state.

Similarly, the challenge to rethinking social policy is not only exter-nal, but also domestic. Over the last 25 years, the structural adjustmentof Africa’s economies has gone hand-in-hand with the structural adjust-ment of politics and civil society (Adesina 2004). Interest groups withinstrumental, ideological and material commitment to the neoliberalproject are prevalent not only within the economy and the state, butwithin the civil society (not the least within the NGO sector). It takesthe construction of new social coalition to highlight the need for a fun-damental rethinking of social policy, specifically, and development pol-icy broadly. It would require a shift from a civil society dominated byNGOs to one led by social movements.

Finally, in rethinking social policy making we need to come to termswith the profoundly gendered nature of the labour market, the interactionsbetween the formal and care economies, and broad social relations. Elsonand Cagatay (2000) point to the ‘male-breadwinner bias’ at the heart ofneoliberal macroeconomics; a similar bias is inherent in many tradi-tional social provisioning and social security programmes. The gendereddimensions of labour market participation and sustained employmentrecord – and therefore retirement annuity or provident fund contributions –distinctly disadvantage women whose labour market participation is ofteninterrupted by marriage, childrearing, or who bear the burden of theunpaid care economy. As public provisioning collapsed the burden of agender-ordered economy mounted; essentially increasing the burden forthe women who are its essence (UNRISD 2005: 129). Rethinking socialpolicy requires a strongly pro-natal approach, but it also requires socialprovisioning that treats women as people in their own right rather thanin their procreation and nurturing roles. Often, attempts at targetingwomen reinforce the gendered rendering of women as wives and mothers.The Progresa/Oportuidades programme in Mexico, which started in 1997 is aclear case in point: ‘it provides cash transfers and food handouts to approx-imately five million poor rural households, but on the condition that theysend their children to school and visit local health centres on a regularbasis’ (UNRISD 2005: 138), which would have seemed a major social


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investment all round. However, the programme was focused on women: inaddition to ensuring that the children attend school and visit the clinics,the women have ‘to perform community work such as cleaning schoolsand health centres, unlike those not in the scheme’ (UNRISD 2005: 139).The end result was that the scheme reinforced the traditional idea of thewomen as mothers and hindered autonomous labour market participation.

Notes

1 Vandermoortele (2000) has queried the validity of the $1/day ‘internationalnorm’ for estimating core poverty. The studies of ten low-income countries,‘found that the cost of a minimum basket of goods and services was equivalentto S1 per day per person, when expressed in purchasing power parity of 1985’(Vandermoortele 2000: 4). His concerns were that, first, this produces a static ideaof poverty (a 1985 benchmark), when in fact the circumstances were changing –which speaks to how one constructs the PPP basket. Second, the norm ‘violatesthe standard definition of income-poverty’ where someone is considered poor ifs/he fails to ‘reach a minimum level of economic well-being set by society’ (p. 5,emphasis in original). Wealthier societies tend to have a higher level of societyacceptable standard of living, which a measure taken in some of the poorestcountries in the world might yield. The norm is not a measure of poverty but of‘how many people are struggling to survive every day on less than $1’ (ibid.).While accepting the validity of Vandermoortele’s critique of this norm, the impli-cations of the second leg of his argument, for ‘poorer’ countries is not necessarilyvalid. To illustrate, if there were to be a massive collapse in standard of living orwealth in a society such that everyone in the country became poorer, and thiswere to persist for two generations or more – such that people start getting ‘usedto living at a severely diminished level of livelihood’, poverty would not ipso factoreduce. There is a minimum level of human existence that must serve as a floor,regardless of how many people in society fall below that floor or the normativeorientation to such level of livelihood.

2 While there is increasing concession from the side of Walrasian neoclassicaleconomists and policymakers on the possible virtuous interplay of equity andefficiency (Mkandawire 2001a), there has been no fundamental shift – conces-sions are made only to the extent that equity considerations and policies arelimited in their coverage (basic education, for instance), and targeted socialsafety net in the design of social security policies, and strong antipathy to redis-tribution as a core principle of macroeconomic policy. Cf. Bhagwati (1988) anddesign of policies rooted in PRSP approach. Wolfensohn’s 1999 internal memoon the CDF is driven by the same logic (cf. Adesina 2002/2006).

3 BBC, The Story of Africa. http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/14chapter7.shtml. (Accessed 23 December 2005).

4 Patrice Lumumba’s murder was authorized by Dwight Eisenhower, the USpresident, and with direct involvement of the Belgian political and intelli-gence elite (cf. de Witte 2001).


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5 Categories such as the ‘nation’ and ‘nation-state’, even ‘nationalism’ or‘nationalist’, are of dubious value in making sense of post-colonial Africa orAfrica of late colonialism. Strictly speaking, the ‘nationalist movements’ wereanti-colonial rather than ‘nationalist’ in what inspired them; they were hardlyconcerned with the political or territorial redemption of people with sharedlinguistic and cultural heritage or consanguinity. The aspiration for unity wasnot about ‘national unity’ – i.e., based on consanguinity – as much as over-coming ethnic and religious divisiveness on the basis of which colonialism hadflourished, and which was a principal weapon of colonial-demagoguery. Thenew commitment is more to the post-colonial ‘country-territory’ (country-state,perhaps) than to the nation-state. The unity sought was one forged out of thecrucible of shared victimhood arising from the racist-colonial enterprise. It is inthis sense that pan-Africanism represents the ideal of such aspiration.

6 The data for the years in Table 1.1 are meant to capture the medium to long-term shift in the social indicators.

7 Gross capital formation is the dependent variable, and gross domestic sav-ings the predictor (Data source: World Bank’s 2002 World DevelopmentIndicators CD.

8 Net factor payments and remittances abroad grew from $14 million in 1979to $206 million in 1982 – the removal of the exchange control was a legalrequirement of the Lancaster House agreement; balance of payment crisis –the deficit grew from $74m in 1979 to $533 million in 1982; the World Bankpolicy advisers were not short of loan offers and arrangements for varioussegments of the country – 94,000 such loans by 1987 (Mhone and Bond 2001;Bond 2000). Both the finance minister and the World Bank were confidentthat while indebtedness might rise in the early years of post-independence,it would rapidly fall as the economy picks up and the loans are paid off(Kadhani 1986; Mhone and Bond 2001). It did not; the fiscal crisis that thiscreated became the basis for the stranglehold that the BWIs would, by 1985,impose on the country. In other words, a combination of iniquitous ‘peaceagreement’ for the country’s independence; exogenous factors like drought;South African geopolitics and destabilization; sovereign rentier politics, anderrors on the side of domestic policy makers undermined the economy. LikeSouth Africa, Zimbabwe emerged from racist, settler colonial rule ‘out ofsync’ with the Nationalist phase and a more policy-plural context into one inwhich the neoliberal geopolitics came to determine donor/BWIs relationshipwith countries around the world.

9 The figure that the government often quotes – R31.1 billion in 1995 to R59.6billion in 2002 – refers to nominal spending: i.e. before accounting for theimpact of inflation.

10 Four children per family could go to school without paying fees, which begsthe question of what happens in the case of a family with more than fourchildren for families in acute poverty. To blunt the gender impact, policymakers decreed that where the household has female children, at least 2 ofthe four children must be female – which still begs the question of familieshaving to decide which child should go to school, and which one should stayon the farm or learn a trade. The contrast with Nationalist phase universalaccess is stark, indeed. In 2003, enrolment of girls in primary school was 49per cent of total enrolment (cf. Bategeka 2005).


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11 Cf. Department of Labour (www.labour.gov.za); Republic of South Africa,Unemployment Insurance Act 2001.

12 Labour Department Spokesperson, Page Boikanyo, 10 March 2005(www.southafrica.info).

13 Department of Labour. 2004. Unemployment Insurance Fund Annual Report forthe period 1 April 2003 to 31 March 2004 (Pretoria: Department of Labour).

14 The problem with data and arguments such as those by Singh (2003) – ofincreased utilisation following the introduction of user fees – is that they suf-fer from the tendency to compare this with the period immediately preced-ing the introduction – which fails to account for the ‘noise’ created by thecollapse in health care spending due to the budgetary and balance of pay-ments crises. A more useful comparison would be between the pre-crisis andthe post-introduction periods.

15 Cf. www.nigeriafirst.org. (Accessed 25 November 2005).16 National Health Insurance Scheme, Government of Ghana: www.ghana.gov.gh

(Accessed 25 November 2005).17 HIPC refers to the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative which provides

debt relief or cancellation in exchange for deep liberalization and ‘reform’ ofthe economy and public services. The funds released under this initiative iswhat the Ghanaian government is using to set up the structures of the healthinsurance scheme – the community and district structures – but not for fund-ing the scheme itself.

18 The ‘Encompassing’ Model of Social Insurance Institution is one of the five‘ideal-typical’ models of social welfare regimes that Korpi and Palme (1998)identified. This comes closest to the idea of ‘universal entitlement’. Entitlementis based on ‘citizenship and labour force participation’; the principle guidingbenefit level is flat-rate and earnings-related, and non employer/employeecooperation is required in administering the programme (p. 666). At the otherextreme is the ‘Targeted’ model, for which entitlement is based on ‘proven need’and benefit level is kept to the minimum. In between are three other models:the ‘Voluntary state-subsidized’ model that relies on membership and contribu-tions, with flat rate or earning-related benefits; the ‘Corporatist’ model, inwhich entitlement derives from ‘occupational category and labour force partici-pation’, and benefits are earnings-related; and the ‘Basic Security’ model, forwhich entitlements are based on citizenship or contributions, and benefit paidout on a flat-rate principle. It is only the ‘corporatist’ model that involves theparticipation of employers and employees in the administration of the scheme.Korpi and Palme classifications (regimes of social policy, one would say) is, forme, far more useful than Esping-Andersen’s (1990) three regimes of welfare.

19 The “trigger mechanism” (Jones et al 1983) here are old age and (65 years formen and 60 years for women), and individual income below R1 226 a monthfor single persons, and R2 226 for married persons (Samson et al 2005).

20 Cited by Mkandawire (2005).

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2Ruling Ideas and SocialDevelopment in Sub-SaharanAfrica: An Assessment ofNationalist, Keynesian andNeoliberal ParadigmsAbdul-Ganiyu Garba

2.1 Introduction

This chapter identifies and evaluates the paradigms that have shapedsocial policy in post-colonial sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). It is axiomatic thatthe shifting mainstream of development thought and policy adviceshaped much of SSA’s post-colonial social policy and social develop-ment. Adelman (2001) made the same point thus:

No area of economics has experienced as many abrupt changes in itsleading paradigm since World War II as has economic development.The twists and turns in development economics have had profoundimplications for development policy. Specifically, the dominantdevelopment model has determined policy prescription in the econ-omy, the degree of government intervention, the form and directionof intervention, and the nature of government–market interactions.

The core paradigms at the root of the shifting mainstream can be groupedinto macroeconomic (the Keynesian revolution, the neoclassical synthesisand the counter-revolution) and microeconomic (equilibrium theory, wel-fare theory, information economics, and so on).

Although the shifting mainstream exerted the strongest influence onsocial policy and social development of most post-colonial SSA countriesfor much of the past five decades, it was not the only option. It is clear fromthe writings and the revealed strategic preferences of the leading nation-alists such as Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba and Julius Nyererethat their views of development and how to facilitate it were uniquely

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Abdul-Ganiyu Garba 55

non-mainstream. Consequently, it is appropriate that we evaluate theNationalists’ notions of and understanding of development as well astheir preferred development strategies and the roles of social policy andsocial outcomes in them. The evaluation is justified since theNationalists’ perspective was an option and the evaluation would shedlight on why it was not as influential as the shifting mainstream.

To start with, a working definition of social policy is appropriate andwe adopt a simple one: social policy is state or government policy thattargets social problems or generates social outcomes. In principle, there-fore, every economic policy (tax, regulation, exchange rate, money supply,government expenditure, trade policy, debt policy, and so on) has socialconsequences and tends to target one or more social problems. For instance,tax policies may target inequity, unemployment or consumption whilegovernment expenditure may target full employment which is, simulta-neously, a social as well as an economic goal. It follows therefore fromthe working definition that economic policy does not lead social policy.Rather, economic policy is a subset of social policy.

The rest of the chapter is organized into four sections. In the next sec-tion (section 2.2), we review the evolution of mainstream developmentadvice and paradigms. The main goals are: (i) a clear identification of thephases; (ii) the generation of some insights into why the mainstreamwas shifting; and (iii) an outlining of some of the consequences forsocial policy and social development of SSA countries. Section 2.3 pres-ents and evaluates the nationalists’ vision, understanding and strategies.It also generates inferences about the consequences of the nationalists’vision, understanding and strategies for social policy and for socialdevelopment. Section 2.4 discusses the Keynesian revolution and theneoclassical paradigm defined loosely to include equilibrium theory, wel-fare theory, neoclassical synthesis and new classical economics. We drawthe main conclusions in section 2.5.

2.2 Evolution of development advice in post-colonial SSAand the underlying paradigms

At least two strategic options confronted post-colonial SSA states seekingthe social development of their countries. The first strategic option was todepend on their own intellectual and financial capital. This was the preferred option of the nationalists. The second strategic option was to depend on foreign intellectual and financial capital. When Meier(2001) asserted that ‘the new governments of Asia and Africa turned to economists in the United Kingdom and America’ for advice to accelerate

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their economic development, he suggests that most post-colonial SSAstate agents chose the second option. In retrospect, it would seem thatthe majority who wittingly or unwittingly chose the second option weremembers of the Monrovia Group1 who, unlike members of the CasablancaGroup,2 appear not have viewed the United Kingdom and the United Statesas well as foreign intellectual and financial capital as predatory.

Notwithstanding differences in revealed preferences, Table 2.1 showsthat the development advice that dominated economic/social policiesin much of post-colonial SSA and for most SSA countries confirmedMeier’s assertion. Four main inferences about the evolution of develop-ment advice, development financing and social policy and social devel-opment in post-colonial SSA could be drawn from Table 2.1.

First, orthodox development thought has provided four distinct setsof advice (the state as primary agent of development, get prices right, getpolicies right and comprehensive reform) reflecting four distinct diag-noses about the causes of development failures in SSA. The average lifecycle of each advice is about a decade and the observed patterns appearsimilar to that of a product life cycle.3

Secondly, the evolution of development advice is indicative of con-trolled path dependence such that the first advice creates the enabling con-ditions for development failures that create the enabling conditions forthe second advice, and so on. For example, the first advice encouraged SSAgovernments to borrow in order to fund national development plans thatfailed to bring about economic growth, structural transformation orequity, but left most heavily externally indebted. In the second diagnos-tic, the development advisers conveniently blamed the state as a meansof starting the process of deepening and widening the influence of theneoclassical doctrine in development finance and advice. It was not enoughto get prices right (second advice), policies had to be right (third advice)and reform had to extend to the state (fourth advice). It is safe to assumethat the problems of the fourth advice would produce a fifth advice, andthat of the fifth a sixth advice, and so on.

Thirdly, the first set of advisers offered grand guarantees of developmentand raised expectations that were not fulfilled. The second advice and sub-sequent advisers did not offer any guarantees of development. In fact, thesecond set of advisers issued the threat: getting prices wrong could end devel-opment (Timmer 1973; Meier 2001). Subsequent advisers also focus onwhat would be the costs of not taking their advice. In fact, from the thirdadvice, the external debt crisis strengthened the hand of sovereign lendersand their multilateral agents to be able to compel the acceptance of advice.

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Table 2.1 The ruling advice, 1950s–1990s

Period Diagnosis Underlying paradigm Advice Promises Implementers(theories)

1950s Market failure Neoclassical theory • State should act • Structural • Visiting missions, and Vicious cycle of (welfare economics, as the major transformation foreign advisers 1960s poverty Harrod Domar growth agent of change • Correct market and state agents

Dual gap model, Growth Accoun- • State promotion failure, break-(savings – ting, vicious cycle of of capital accu- out from investment and poverty models, gap mulation; import vicious cycle oftrade balance) models; stages of growth, substituting poverty, achieve

balanced growth, big industrialization critical mini-push, Prebisch–Myrdal– • Coordination of mum effort andSinger thesis, critical resource alloca- achieve take-offminimum effort) tion through • Inequity is

programming short termedand planning

• Sovereign borrowing

1970s Government Neoclassical theory • Get prices right • Possibility of • Visiting missions, failure* Equity with growth i.e., remove price development foreign advisers

distortions and state agents• Basic needs

(Continued)

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Table 2.1 (Continued)

Period Diagnosis Underlying paradigm Advice Promises Implementers(theories)

1980s Policy failure Neoclassical theory • Get policies right: • Stabilization, • Visiting missions, markets, prices efficiency and foreign advisers and incentives growth and state agents

• Submit to Struc-tural Adjustment Programme (liberalization, export promo-tion, privatization, deregulation and market leadership)

1990s Institutional Neoclassical theory (New • Political and • Efficiency and • Visiting missions, failure Political economy, new policy reform growth foreign

growth theory, new • Invest in human advisers andmarket failures) capital

• Universal welfare

* The causes of government failure according to critics (Killick 1976; Chakravarty 1991) include deficiencies in plan, inadequate information, andresources, shocks, institutional and administrative weaknesses (Meier 2001: 17).Source: Organized from Meier (1991), Martinussen (1997) and Meier and Stiglitz (2001).

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Fourthly, neoclassical economics has been the dominant paradigmused to justify orthodox policy advice. Each successive advice after the firstdeepened and widened the application of neoclassical economics to prices(second advice), to policies (third advice) and to the state (fourth advice).Whereas, development was treated as distinct from neoclassical econom-ics up to the third advice, it is now argued, by Krueger (1986) for instance,that there was no longer any need to separate development economicsfrom neoclassical economics.4 Furthermore, with each successive advice,focus has shifted from development to microeconomic issues. Instead ofthe grand visions and promises of the first generation advisers, the newgeneration of advisers have retreated into the orthodox catchphrases ofefficiency and growth and from a ‘focus on the process of developmentto an emphasis on a particular aspect of underdevelopment’ (Meier2001: 18).

Gelb (1999) suggested that development finance has produced in SSAcountries from the third advice, a parallel state organization conditionedto serve development finance in an increasingly close, but asymmetricalrelation between visiting missions, foreign advisers and local state agents.Gelb (1999) contended that the parallel economy was distortionary andwas associated with high transaction costs in terms of time committedto hosting visiting missions and foreign advisers. Grindle (1991) drewattention to the closed nature of policy making in SSA associated withasymmetries of information and uncertainty that undermine policy mak-ing in developing countries. Where ‘development partners’ dominate thepolicy process that is closed to the civil society, the chances of adverseselection of policies is high. Furthermore, because neither ‘developmentpartners’ nor their ‘local counterparts’ are penalized for adversely selectedpolicies, neither have any incentive to bring to an end, the controlledpath-dependent game of development advice and development financing.

The chances that the game of development advice and developmentfinancing would sustain the economic and social development of SSA arevery low. It is important to note that much of the diagnostics and adviceoccurred when ‘development partners’ were playing to win the Cold Wargame against formidable foes.5 While independent sub-Saharan govern-ments were unsuccessful in building an effective alliance to engage withthe global political-economic games of the Cold War era, the United States-led western alliance built the economic institutions to support, developand market ideas and products that stimulated and sustain demand forsovereign finance and technical assistance.6 Obviously, a reliance on west-ern economists for ideas on economic and social policy and advice, giventhe strategic nature of international economic and political relations, was


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at best passive or naïve. This is because a game between a passive and fatal-ist player adopting a defeatist strategy on the one hand, and a prudent andrational player is most unlikely to generate a fair or mutually beneficial pay-off. It is naïve and irrational to expect that theory or advice on economicand social development financed by the prudent and rational7 playeroffered to an exploitative opportunity could have been motivated by altru-ism or potent in generating development of the exploitative opportunity.8

Having reviewed the evolution of development advice and the under-lying paradigms, we evaluate the Nationalist paradigm before we examinethe dominant paradigms that shaped development advice, social policyand social development of post-colonial SSA.

2.3 The Nationalists’ paradigm and social developmentof SSA

Some journalists, commentators and scholars tend to blame the gloomyand variegated social development outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa onNationalists and the leaders that succeeded them. For instance, whenMwalimu Julius Nyerere died in 1999, a commentator, Eric Margolis, wrotea polemical piece entitled ‘Saintly Socialist Leaves Tanzania Even Poorer’.Similarly, Wayne T. Brough, in an article entitled ‘Plot a New Course forAfrica: Freedom Will Work for African Economies, Too’, blamed KwameNkrumah’s policies for chasing away foreign capital, inflation and for thecollapse of Ghana’s cocoa market.

Such simplistic analyses are not useful in understanding the social devel-opment of SSA in the last half century. Worse, they divert scarce resources(intellect, time and passion) away from the serious inquiry, research andcontemplation from which useful lessons could be deduced. The maininterest in this section therefore, is to highlight the core ideas of theNationalists as we understand them and thereafter, attempt an evaluation.

Core ideas of the Nationalists

The discussion of the core ideas of the nationalists is organized aroundthree key issues: (i) the notion of development, (ii) an understanding ofdevelopment challenges and (iii) development strategies. This organiza-tion benefits from the useful distinction between development concept,development theory and development strategy presented in Martinussen(1997). In terms of logical sequence, the development concept precedesand predetermines development theory while development theory, inturn, precedes and predetermines development strategy. The significanceof the development concept is, thus, obvious.


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Martinussen (1997) makes two useful deductions relevant to the evalu-ation. The first is that a ‘development concept contains the answer towhat development is’, while the second is that the ‘answer can never bevalue-free; it will always reflect notions of what ought to be understoodby development’. Thus, for instance, when SSA state agents seek advicefrom any economists, the advice they get are predetermined and limited by theeconomists’ preferred notion of development. The notion of preferenceunderscores a self-evident fact: the set of notions of development con-sists of more than one element and that of the nationalists is one of them.

Notion of development

Two features distinguished the Nationalist notion of development. Thefirst is its people-centredness and the second an explicit commitment tohigh moral standards. In his independence speech, Nkrumah articulated avision of a totally liberated Africa and a new African personality and iden-tity. Similarly, in the Arusha Declaration, Nyerere set out the goals ofdevelopment: ‘to organize society in such a way that our efforts benefit allour people and that there is no exploitation of one man by another’. Thethemes of equity, freedom and higher levels of consciousness were centralin the visions of Nkrumah and Nyerere (Nkrumah 1961, 1965; Nyerere1967a, 1967b).

Given that it was only recently that the idea of human developmentbecame mainstream, the Nationalists were several decades ahead of ortho-dox development thought.9 It is also noteworthy that the Nationalists’vision differed from the modernization view of development whichrequired the African person, society, economy and politics to developtowards greater similarity with the Western World (see Pye 1966; Apter1965). Nkrumah was categorical that the Nationalist African faced neitherEast nor West but forward – based on a unique understanding of devel-opment, which we briefly review below.

Understanding of development challenges and development strategies

Key to the Nationalists’ understanding of the challenges of developmentwas the position that global players (states and non-state) were unequal andthe powerful were predators.10 This can be interpreted as a strategic under-standing of the challenges of development in the sense that the Nationalistview is that of an interdependent and highly asymmetrical internationalsystem. The strategic understanding is reflected in the weight assignedto strategic asymmetries in international political-economic and military


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capacities as core constraints to development of post-colonial Africa.The strategic understanding is also inherent in the revealed preferenceof the Nationalists for African unity as the strategy for confronting theglobal challenges of neocolonialism and imperialism.

The vision of African unity mooted as far back as 1900 and which formsthe driving force behind pan-Africanism recognized the threats of theinherent and manifest asymmetries of the global political-economic order.Nkrumah had always emphasized the challenges of the asymmetries ofglobal relations, the dangers of the Cold War and the vulnerabilities of theestablished colonial linkages. For instance, Nkrumah (1965) warned, ‘Atpresent most of the independent African states are moving in directions,which expose us to the dangers of imperialism and neocolonialism.’Similarly, Nyerere recognized the fact that the economic challenges11

could confuse an SSA state agent into a development strategy that is morelikely to produce underdevelopment. The Arusha Declaration containedtwo strong arguments. First, because SSA countries were poor, it wasunwise and a grave mistake for SSA countries to rely on money as themajor instrument of development. Secondly, that it was even moreunwise for SSA countries to expect to escape from poverty by dependingon foreign loans ‘firstly because, to say the truth, we cannot get enoughmoney for our development and, secondly, because even if we could getit, such complete dependence on outside help would have endangeredour independence and the other policies of our country’.

The Nationalists that were members of the Casablanca Group revealeda preference for ‘power aggregating development strategies’. Nkrumah, theleading force in the group, relied on the experiences of the United Statesand the Soviet Union to argue for African Unity. According to him, from‘the examples before us, in Europe and the United States of America, itis therefore patent that we in Africa have the resources, present andpotential, for creating the kind of society that we are anxious to build’(Nkrumah 1965). He therefore, concluded that: ‘The survival of free Africa,the extending independence of this continent, and the developmenttowards that bright future on which our hopes and endeavors are pinned,depend upon political unity.’ In Nkrumah’s vision, political union inAfrica would involve or enable: (a) ‘over-all economic planning on a con-tinental basis’ to ‘increase the industrial and economic power of Africa’;(b) ‘establishment of a unified military and defense strategy’ to protectsovereignty of Africa against imperialist aggressors; and (c) ‘a unified for-eign policy and diplomacy to give political direction to our joint effortsfor the protection and economic development of our continent’ to ‘speakwith one voice in the councils of the world’.

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Evaluation of the ideas of the Nationalists

The idea of a United State of Africa did not become concrete. Why was thisso despite its merits? It may be argued that the vision of the Nationalistwas ideal, but unfeasible. The mainstreaming of the idea of human develop-ment and the significance of human capital in endogenous growth modelsimply that the Nationalists were right in placing human beings at thecentre of development both as means and as ends. The failure of the ideaof a United State of Africa, the assassination and overthrow of a majorityof Pan-Africanist governments and their replacement by West-leaning mili-tary governments and the great success of neocolonialism indicate thatthe nationalist vision was not feasible.

A few countries, particularly Tanzania, unilaterally developed develop-ment strategies that placed human beings at the core of development.Unlike the orthodox policy advice, which tended to treat social policy firstat best as residual, in Tanzania’s socialism and self-reliance, social policywas the arrowhead of development strategy. Adopting a developmentstrategy on the tripod of people, hard work and use of intelligence, publiceducation and, indeed, social policy in general, becomes not only inte-gral but the engine of – and essential to – development. It is, therefore,unsurprising that Tanzania’s is adjudged as having the best public healthservice on the African continent (according to United Nations officials)and a national primary-school system.

For a country with a gross national income (GNI) per capita of only$280, Tanzania’s performance in immunization, access to safe water, accessto sanitation, literacy and education in Table 2.2 is clearly impressive.

In addition to the problem of feasibility, three areas of weaknesses canbe identified in nationalist policies regarding social development. Thefirst is the general problem of ossification associated with a socialist sys-tem of economy that countries such as Tanzania came to adopt. The essen-tial problem is the tendency towards centralization and its negative effectson efficiency and adaptability.

The second area of weakness is the inability to deal with the domesticeconomic challenges in a comprehensive and systematic way. In Tanzania’spolicy of socialism and self-reliance, for instance, rural agriculture was theprimary anchor. Theoretically, and in practice, the commodity problemworks against farmers and against agricultural economies (Kwanashie,Garba and Bogunjoko 1999). It follows theoretically and from evidencethat the Tanzanian economy envisioned by the policy of socialism andself-reliance would be highly vulnerable and easily destabilized bymanipulations of international commodity prices. Given the set of globalchallenges and the fact of Tanzania being an adversary/exploitative

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Table 2.2 Tanzania: summary statistics

Basic indicatorsTotal population (000s) 35,119Population under 5 5,974Population under 18 18,258Annual no. of births 1,379Annual no. of births 1,379GNI per capita (US$) 280

Mortality (per 1000 live births)Infant mortality rate 104Under 5 mortality rate 165Annual no. of under 5 deaths (000s) 228

Immunization% fully immunized (1-year-old children)BCG 87DPT3 76Polio3 74Measles 72% of routine EPI vaccines financed by government 10

Water and sanitation% of population with access to safe water:Water – total 68Water – urban 90Water – rural 57

% of population with access to adequate sanitation:Sanitation – total 90Sanitation – urban 99Sanitation – rural 86

NutritionInfants with low birth rate (%) 11Exclusively breastfed (0–3 months) 41Breastfed with complementary food (6–9 months) 64Still breastfeeding (20–23 months) 48

UnderweightModerate and severe 29Severe 7Stunting – Moderate and severe 44Wasting – Moderate and severe 5% of children receiving vitamin A supplementation 21% of households consuming iodized salt 67

Reproductive healthTotal fertility rate 5.3Contraceptive prevalence 22Maternal mortality ratio (per 100,000 live births) 530

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opportunity of the western alliance, by virtue of its socialist leaning, itwas highly likely that the Tanzanian economy would be destabilized atsome point. It is, therefore, unsurprising that like other primary export-dependent economies, Tanzania began having economic crises whencommodity prices collapsed and energy costs rose steeply simultane-ously in the 1970s. Once the economy becomes destabilized, social pol-icy, hence welfare, becomes vulnerable. Thus, although social policystarts as integral to economic strategy, sustainability becomes an issue. Itis important to note, however, that the commodity problem was a uni-versal problem, i.e., all primary exporting economies are vulnerable andconfront the sustainability problem regardless of the extent of integra-tion of social policy in economic strategy.12

The third problem – Pan-Africanist commitment to the liberalization ofAfrica – is a constraint to the material welfare of the population of the lib-erating states. In other words, a commitment to liberation of Africa hasconsiderable social opportunity costs. The explicit costs involve resourcescommitted to supporting liberation movements, particularly in SouthAfrica, former Rhodesia, Mozambique, Namibia and Angola. The countriesin the Frontline States, for instance, bore significant losses in terms offoregone material welfare of the population. For example, for Tanzaniathat is located in a troubled neighbourhood (Burundi, Rwanda andUganda); membership and leadership of the Frontline States as well asinvolvement in the exit of Idi Amin of Uganda came at heavy opportunity


EducationAdult literacy rateMale 84Female 67

Primary school enrolment ratio (gross)Male 77Female 77

Primary school enrolment ratio (net)Male 56Female 57

Secondary school enrolment ration (gross)Male 6Female 5

Source: http://www.unicef.org/statis/Country_1Page175.html.

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costs.13 It is generally accepted, for instance, that the Ugandan war ofliberation of 1979 damaged the Tanzanian economy.

Some caveat to the third problem is necessary. Firstly, it is worth recall-ing that Pan-Africanism had a distinct notion of development, with peopleand core values of equity, freedom and consciousness of self-worth anddignity as essential. Therefore, to hold that the social opportunity costsof championing the liberation of Africa is a problem can, therefore, belegitimately challenged to the extent that altruism not selfishness wasthe essential motivating force in the nationalist notion of development.14

It follows, therefore, that the nationalist notion of development impliesthat a free nationalist state would willingly bear some social costs (mater-ials forgone) in return for higher social welfare (freedom, justice, dig-nity) in a colonized country. Apart from the greater satisfaction, suchnationalist altruism could help build friendship, brotherhood and unity.Thus, viewed from a nationalist point of view, the total political liberationof Africa in the twentieth century constitutes a significant indicator of socialdevelopment. However, the social opportunity costs, in terms of materialwelfare forgone, can constitute strategic opportunity for a predator. Whenthe commodity problem and the rationality, prudence and strategic capaci-ties of predators are accounted for, the social opportunity costs of Pan-Africanism amplify the vulnerability of countries like Tanzania.

Secondly, although rendered unfeasible and socially costly by neocolo-nialism and the inherent economic, social and political weaknesses ofSSA countries, the understanding of the global state and its social orderby the Nationalists remain valid then as now. In fact, the state of socialwelfare (material and non-material) in Africa today is consistent with thepredictions of the Nationalists that isolated African states are vulnerableto imperialism and neocolonialism and that the total liberation of allAfrica is necessary to bring about social development in Africa. The mater-ial failure in post-colonial Africa in the first decade of the twenty-firstcentury seems to support the proposition of the Nationalists that politicaldisunity would undermine the development of SSA.

Thirdly, the ideas of the Nationalists about the motive forces of devel-opment and the vulnerability of the typical post-colonial country arestill very useful in analysing the feasibility of the type of social policycanvassed by Mkandawire (2001). It is also very clear, as we indicatedearlier, that the Nationalists were decades ahead of the new generationof development economists in terms of the broad conceptualization ofdevelopment and the role of knowledge and human capital formation inthe development process.

The failures of the Nationalists’ strategies offer useful lessons for think-ing about social policy and social policy outcomes in SSA and, indeed, in


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all former colonies that have failed to make the transition from colonial-ism to development.

2.4 Keynesian and neoclassical paradigms and socialdevelopment in SSA15

Keynes’ The General Theory is generally acknowledged as revolutionary,while the resurgence of neoclassical economics from the 1970s is char-acterized as counter-revolutionary. Though neither The General Theorynor the counter-revolution were directly concerned with the developmentproblems of post-colonial SSA, both frameworks have had to varyingdegrees and at different phases of what we call sovereign rentier capitalismexerted influences on social policy and social policy outcomes in post-colonial SSA.

We have suggested that The General Theory was most influential in thefirst development advice or first phase of sovereign rentier capitalismand that the influence of the counter-revolution became increasingly dom-inant from the second advice. The rest of the section highlights and dis-cusses some of the core ideas of the Keynesian revolution and those ofthe counter-revolution focusing on the preferred social policy and socialpolicy outcomes revealed by each paradigm. In the last part we evaluatethe paradigmatic shifts focusing on their influence on social policy andoutcomes in post-colonial SSA.

Keynesian paradigm and social policy

Chapter 24 of The General Theory suggests that the social outcomes andsocial policy to bring them about are the essence of the book. In addition,one could infer from Chapter 24 that Keynes did not create the dividebetween social and economic policy that came to characterize theNeoclassical Synthesis, Growth Theory and earlier development thought.

Two arguments in The General Theory are critical to the social policyadvocated by Keynes and the desired social policy outcomes advanced inThe General Theory. The first is that the equity–efficiency or equity–growthrelations are direct.16 This, of course, was against the classical view thatequity and efficiency were in conflict. In the words of Keynes:

Up to the point where full employment prevails, the growth of cap-ital depends not at all on a low propensity to consume but is, on thecontrary, held back by it; and only in conditions of full employment

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is a low propensity to consume conducive to the growth of capital . . .[In other words] in contemporary conditions the growth of wealth,so far from being dependent on abstinence of the rich, as is com-monly supposed, is more likely to be impeded by it.

The second argument is that a trade-off exists between laissez-faire and fullemployment, equity and peace. In other words, a society that chooses lais-sez-faire cannot at the same time have full employment, equity and peace.To have full employment, equity and peace, the state must effectivelymoderate capitalist individualism through direct taxation, low interest ratepolicy and socialization of investment.

The question of interest to us is what are the implications of the argu-ments of Keynes for social policy? From Chapter 24 of The General Theorywe deduce the key theoretical innovations and their links to social policyand social outcomes, which we summarize in Table 2.3. The table showshow each of eight theoretical innovations are linked to four main socialpolicy instruments government expenditure policies, tax policies, interestrate policy and socialization of investment. The set of social policy out-comes include: full employment; stability and insurance, reduction in scarcityvalue of capital, lower rent on capital and euthanasia of the rentier capitalistas well as greater equity and peace.

The direct implication of the first argument of Keynes for social policyis that because equity is in harmony with growth when the economy isat under-full employment level, social policy is not in conflict with eco-nomic policy. In other words, policies that raise the marginal propensityto consume, such as a progressive tax cut, can simultaneously enhanceequity and growth and drive the economy towards full employment.Similarly, socialization of investment by reducing the scarcity value ofcapital, reducing rents on capital and triggering the euthanasia of therentier capitalist would enhance efficiency, output growth and reduceinequality.

The second direct implications of the second argument are an enlarge-ment in the role of the state and changes in the state–market relations ofthe period. Keynes clarified the state–market relations implied by hisarguments thus:

It is not the ownership of the instruments of production which is importantfor the state to assume. If the State is able to determine the aggregateamount of resources devoted to augmenting the instruments and thebasic rate of reward to those who own them, it would have accomplishedall that is necessary. (italics our emphasis)


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Table 2.3 Keynesian innovations in the general theory and their implications for social policy and social policy outcomes

Innovation Theoretical implications Implications for social Expected social policy policy outcomes

1. Choice of money value of • Income � value of current output � • Measurement of social as • Measurement of social quantities of employment consumption � current investment well as economic policy as well as economic as the two fundamental • Savings � value of current output – policy outcomesunits of quantity in macro current consumption � current analysis (pp. 37–41) investment

• Homogeneity and avoids aggregation inconsistencies/Non-vague quantitative concepts for quantitative analysis

2. Marginal propensity to • The propensity to consume and the rate • Government expenditure • Full employment; consume (MPC) of new investment determine between policies; tax policies; stability, reduction in (psychological law) them the volume of employment and interest rate policy scarcity value of

the volume of employment is and socialization of capital, lower rent on uniquely related to a given level of real investment capital and euthanasia wages’ (p. 30) of the rentier capitalist

3. Effective demand • Possibility of under-full employment equilibrium and explanation of the paradox of poverty in the mist of plenty

4. Multiplier • Explanation of why the rich must continually search for ample investment opportunities ‘if the savings propensities of its wealthier members are to be compatible with the employment of its wealthier members.

(Continued)

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70Table 2.3 (Continued)

Innovation Theoretical implications Implications for social Expected social policy policy outcomes

5. Macro-level constraints/ • Current savings � current investment/ • Interest rate policy, • Greater equity, full there cannot be a buyer every attempt to save would so reduce demand management employment, peacewithout a seller or income that the attempt necessarily and tax policyvice versa* defeats itself (p. 84)

• Money demand � Money supply/fundamental proposition of monetary theory (pp. 84–5)

6. Theory of interest • Paradox of thrift

7. Short-term expectations • Levels of output and employment at • Demand management • Insurance (smoothen-i.e., expectations about time t, depends on short term and long and socialization ing of aggregate output costs and proceeds terms expectations embodied in of investment demand);and Long-term expecta- capital equipment**tions i.e., expectations • There are feed back effects between about returns on capital outcomes and expectations

• For durable goods, short term expectations of producer are based on long term expectations of investors

• Change in expectations is capable of producing business cycles (p. 49)

8. Liquidity preference • Determinant of interest rate • Interest rate policy • Full employment

* According to Keynes ‘Though an individual whose transactions are small in relation to the market can safely neglect the fact that demand is not aone-sided transaction, it makes nonsense to neglect it when we come to aggregate demand. This is the vital difference between the theory ofeconomic behavior in the aggregate and the theory of the behavior of the individual unit, in which we assume that changes in the individual’s owndemand do not affect his income’ (p. 85).** This suggests that levels of output and employment at time t, depends on expectations about variable output costs and proceeds and about returnson fixed capital. This seems highly plausible in the context of a perfect competitive firm in short run production with fixed and variable inputs.Source: Organized by Garba and Garba (2003a) from Keynes (1936: 245–7).

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In Keynes’ view, therefore, an enlarged role for the state was ‘the only prac-tical means of avoiding the destruction of the existing economic formsin their entirety and as a condition of the successful functioning of indi-vidual initiative’ (Keynes 1936: 380). In other words, an enlarged role forthe state was good for individual initiative driven by self-interest and forthe protection of the social good. In other words, an expansion in therole of the state was not adversarial but necessary to the long-run healthof the free enterprise system.

The counter-revolutionary (neoclassical) paradigm and social policy

The two arguments of Keynes and their implications lie at the root of thecontroversies in macroeconomics and, in fact, it could be argued thatthe contestations over the premises of the arguments shaped the evolutionof economics both before and after The General Theory. Between AdamSmith’s Wealth of Nations and The General Theory, laissez-faire and min-imal state intervention was the conventional wisdom. The GeneralTheory represented a paradigmatic shift towards greater state interven-tion. The neoclassical synthesis of Hicks and Hansen produced the IS–LMframework and it has been primarily used to analyse the contestationsover the policy effectiveness of fiscal and monetary policies. By compar-ison, fiscal and monetary policies are subsets of the set of social policy inThe General Theory. Similarly, the set of social policy outcomes in the neo-classical synthesis is also a subset of the set of social policy in The GeneralTheory.17 The state–market divide was central to the monetarist versusnon-monetarist controversy and, the new classical economics/NewKeynesian divide that emerged in the 1970s.

Figure 2.1 shows The General Theory, neoclassical synthesis and new clas-sical model and their implied social policy and desired social policy out-comes respectively in the top three boxes. The key differences can easilybe seen in Figure 2.1. We have also included development thought which,unlike the other frameworks, was designed as part of the game of sovereignrentier capitalism. It could be observed that the set of social policy hasmirrored the shifts in development advice. For example, in between thefirst two advices, social policy shifted from marginalization to beingresidual to growth or economic policy.

The rise in the influence of the new classical model in the 1970s coin-cided with the rather short transition between the second and thirdphases of development advice. The new classical model was counter-rev-olutionary and the assumption of rational expectations held greatappeal to economists because of its grounding in equilibrium theory. Its


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Social Policy Outcomes

1. Full employment; Stability and insurance, Reduction in scarcity value of capital, lower rent on capital and euthanasia of the rentier capitalist as well as Greater Equity and Peace.

2. Macroeconomic Goals (Internal and External balance)

3. Economic Development

4. Macroeconomic Goals

Social Policy Outcomes

• Efficiency

• Poverty relief

• Social Insurance (protection of accustomed living standard, Income Smoothening, etc.) Vertical and horizontal equity

• Individual Dignity and Social solidarity

• Extension or limit to social rights (enrichment, diminishment of citizenship)

Social Policy

Social Policy

1. Government Expenditure; Tax Policy, Interest Rate Policy, Socialization of investments.

2. Fiscal and Monetary Policies

3. Shifting set

4. Laissez Faire

Macroeconomic Frameworks

1. The General Theory

2. The Neoclassical Synthesis

3. Development Thought

4. New Classical Model

• Regulation

• Subsidies

• Taxation

• Public production

• Income Transfers

• Social Insurance

Key Microeconomic Theories

• Equilibrium Theory and Welfare Analysis

• Imperfect Information

• Public Choice Theory

Figure 2.1 Macroeconomic and microeconomic roots of social policy and social outcomes

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basic hypothesis – the policy ineffectiveness proposition (PIP) – re-emphasizesAdam Smith’s advocacy of laissez-faire and suggests that social policy aswe have defined it in this chapter would be ineffective.

In Figure 2.1, therefore, we turn to equilibrium theory and its associ-ated set of theories to deduce the microeconomic roots of social policy andsocial policy outcomes. Equilibrium theory and welfare theory providetheoretical justifications for a secondary role for social policy in theallocative process. The secondary role for social policy receives theoret-ical justification in the idea of a residual welfare state on grounds of trad-itional market failure.18 Barr (1992) quoted Arrow (1963: 947) to illustratethe typical argument: ‘I propose here the view that, when market fails toachieve an optimal state, society, will to some extent at least, recognizethe gap, and nonmarket social institutions will arise, attempting to fill it’(Arrow 1963: 947).

As shown in Figure 2.1, equilibrium theory and welfare analysis limitsocial policy to regulation, subsidies, taxes and public production, with socialefficiency as the primary social policy outcome. The analysis of socialoutcomes, using the Pareto criterion, limits the set of social outcomes.However, subsequent theoretical developments – asymmetric informationand moral hazard – in the mainstream make efficiency and equity casesfor universal welfare state that broadens the set of social policy outcomes –efficiency, poverty relief, social insurance and vertical and horizontalequity (Barr 1992). Non-economists have extended the set of social policyoutcomes to include individual dignity and social solidarity (Barr 1992)and extension or limit to social rights, that is, enrichment or diminishmentof citizenship (Korpi 1989).

In the first phase of development advice, based on first-generation devel-opment economics and the ‘inverted U hypothesis’, social policy wasviewed as anti-growth. In the second phase, a residual role was assignedto social policy. The importance of social policy was diminished in thethird phase and restored in the fourth phase. The shift in social policywithin the neoclassical paradigm notwithstanding, it is safe to assert thatthe ‘finance agenda’ which has dominated mainstream developmentfinance, thought and policy in that order, has been the primary deter-minant of how the neoclassical paradigm has been used to shape devel-opment and social policies in sub-Saharan Africa. The cyclical pattern inattention given to social policy may be best understood as a reflection ofthe dynamics of the games of sovereign rentier capitalism. The fiascothat trailed the World Development Report 2001 brought out very clearlythe embedded schism between two players identified by their agendas:sovereign rentier capitalist (finance agenda) and the civil society (pro-social


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policy). The conditions under which the second and fourth diagnosticswere made favoured marginal concessions to the civil society, while thefirst and third did not. However, since conditions could not be static, thesignificance of social policy in development financing and advice wouldbe dynamic. The World Development Report 2001 and World DevelopmentReport 2004 support our contention. Conditions were favourable to the‘civil society agenda’ in 2001, but less so in 2004. Consequently, socialpolicy was more significant in the 2001 Report but marginalized in the2004 Report.19

2.5 An evaluation of the shifting mainstream and socialpolicy in SSA

Social and economic policies are systematically integrated in The GeneralTheory. In other words, the relationship was not that of a leader (economicpolicy) and follower (social policy). In addition, social and economic pol-icies are instruments targeting very clear social outcomes that are, simul-taneously, economic outcomes. These include insurance (smoothening ofeffective demand), full employment, greater equity, peace, reduction in scarcityvalue of capital and euthanasia of rentier capital. Smoother effective demandbenefits the individual capitalist and the society. Similarly, full employ-ment benefits individuals and society as much as greater equity and peace.Reduction in the scarcity value of capital could potentially reduce rentfrom the exploitation of capital while the termination of the rentier cap-ital, arguably, could have positive net social effects. It is clear in The GeneralTheory that Keynes was ethically committed to equity, full employment,euthanasia of rentier capitalism and self-reliance. His analysis of eco-nomics in the aggregate was compatible with equity and with efficiency:Keynes showed equity and efficiency to be in a virtuous relationship.

The evolution of macroeconomics after Keynes – from the neoclassicalsynthesis to the Rational Expectation Revolution and to the recent devel-opments (New Classical, New Keynesian and New Growth Theory) – followed a path charted by the synthesis and produced a macroeconom-ics that increasingly mirrors the counter-revolution. The neoclassical syn-thesis was causal to the shift of macroeconomic policy goals towardsgrowth, price stability, full employment and external balance and macro-economic discourse towards relative effectiveness of policies away fromKeynes’s emphasis on equity, full employment, euthanasia of rentier cap-italism and self-reliance.

The open economy version of the synthesis produced what Garba andGarba (2003a) referred to as the benign application of macroeconomic


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theory to SSA countries. In the benign application, social policy was sec-ondary while fiscal, monetary, trade and exchange rate policies were pri-mary. The Philips curve suggested that a certain level of unemploymentwas socially tolerable. Thus, although full employment is one of the fourprimary goals of macroeconomic policy, the concept of full employmentafter the synthesis was different from the concept of full employment inThe General Theory.

The set of social policy in The General Theory and that of the Nationalistare similar: Keynes and the Nationalist revealed a preference for equity,full employment, and euthanasia of rentier capitalism as well as self-reliance and world peace. However, the historical evidence suggests thatthe social policy objectives of Keynes and the Nationalists were not feas-ible. The Nationalists failed to achieve African unity and, as they (Nation-alists) predicted, individual post-colonial states were gradually but steadilyoverwhelmed by neocolonialism and imperialism. Similarly, right fromthe synthesis of Hicks and Hansen, the macroeconomics that evolvedshifted away from the Keynesian ideals to the counter-revolutionaryreality that promoted the three fallacies identified by Adelman (2001):underdevelopment has a single cause (physical capital); development per-formance is measured income and development is a log-linear process.

Keynesian macroeconomics sheds analytical lights on a number ofeconomic and social policy issues. These include: (a) macro-level con-straints and their implications; (b) effectiveness of policy in small openeconomies; (c) monetary-fiscal policy mix for dealing with internal andexternal imbalances; (d) effects of inflationary finance; (e) links betweenbudget and foreign deficit, and so on. Further, Keynes treats social policyas integral to economic policy making. It is, thus, closer to the national-ist treatment of social policy. This is not surprising given that Keynes andthe Nationalists were ethically committed to equity, were opposed to ren-tier capitalism and advocated self-reliance.

Besides the problem of feasibility, Keynesian economics had problemslinked to its being a short-run analysis. A short-run analysis is more likelyto generate economic and social policy that lacks prudence or foresightthan analysis that have a long-term perspective. A short-run analysiscould appeal to choosing a local agent that is fatalistic and passive but,at great social costs. Demand management policies under policy regimeswith unstable fiscal anchors and policy makers that lack experience andcapacity – the case of the typical SSA nation – are most unlikely to gen-erate sustainable desired social outcomes.

Keynesian economics also gives the impression that economic andsocial policy is exogenous. In other words, it tends to overstate the capacity


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of the governments of countries with unstable fiscal anchors to under-take discretionary fiscal or monetary policy. Keynesian macroeconomicsalso does not shed direct analytical light on the national and interna-tional political influences on policy making or on fiscal dominance ofmonetary policy. It is also axiomatic that from the 1970s, social expen-diture, socialization of investments, taxes and interest rate policy – thekey social policies of Keynesian economics – have been losing ground as the state is encouraged to shed its social legitimacy by undertaking‘bold reform’.20

The notion of a guardian state appears to underscore the faith that Keyneshad in the capacity of the state to check the excesses of individual capital-ism while sustaining the socially beneficial aspects of individual capitalism.Keynes, thus, assigns to states a capacity for discretionary social and eco-nomic policy. However, at best, few states in SSA were guardians beyondthe first generation of leaders. Second, as the nationalist recognized, a smallguardian state is prey to rational, prudent and powerful states and inter-national alliances engaged in dynamic struggles for global domination. Thepost-colonial SSA state was, clearly, a highly vulnerable state to the extentthat even the best guardian post-colonial state was most unlikely to sustainsocial development. The sustainability of social development was furtherundermined by the set of local economic and political challenges andindeed, by the social opportunity costs of being a guardian state.21

It is clear from the history of development advice of the last half cen-tury that the social policy and social policy outcomes of The General Theorydid not exert strong influence on social policy in SSA. It is also clear thatits influence ceased from the second phase. It could be argued, however,that Keynes’ paradox of thrift and paradox of poverty in the mist of plentymay have had indirect influences on social policy in SSA throughout theentire period of development advice. To establish how the paradoxes mayhave influenced and still influence social policy in SSA, let us considerKeynes’s explanation of the paradox of poverty in the midst of plenty. Inexplaining the paradox of poverty in the midst of plenty Keynes wrote:

For the mere existence of an insufficiency of effective demand may,and often will bring the increase of employment to a standstill beforea level of full employment has been reached. The insufficiency of effect-ive demand will inhibit the process of production in spite of the factthat the marginal product of labor still exceeds in value the marginaldisutility of employment. Moreover, the richer the community, thewider will tend to be the gap between its actual and its potential pro-duction; and therefore the more obvious and outrageous the defects


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of the economic system . . . a wealthy community would have to discovermuch ampler opportunities for investment if the saving propensities of itswealthier members are to be compatible with the employment of its poorermembers. (1936: 31)

If it is true that the sustained growth of rich nations depends on the dis-covery of ample opportunities for investments, rational and prudent richnations are more likely to find ampler investment opportunities in newlyindependent SSA nations. Of three possible ample investment opportun-ities, foreign direct investments, portfolio flows and sovereign lending, sover-eign lending could be shown to generate the most returns in the any run– short, medium and long.22 Whereas returns from foreign direct invest-ment and portfolio investments are most likely to be directly sensitive tothe quality of local markets, infrastructures, institutions and policies,returns from sovereign lending are most likely inversely related to thequality of states, institutions, infrastructures, markets and policies. Theweaknesses of SSA post-colonial states relative to global players enabledthe growth of sovereign rentier capitalism.

Would the sovereign rentier capitalist exploit the scarcity value of sov-ereign capital? If conditions are feasible, not exploiting the scarcityvalue of sovereign rentier capital would be irrational. Therefore for therich nations that built the multilateral (International DevelopmentAssociation/IDA, the Organization for Economic Co-operation andDevelopment/OECD, and so on) and bilateral (the United States Agencyfor International Development/USAID, the Department for InternationalDevelopment/DFID, and so on) institutions of sovereign rentier capital-ism in the early 1960s not to optimally exploit their advantages relativeto sovereign borrowers of sovereign rentier capital would have been irrational. Would it be wise for sovereign rentier capitalists to advertisetheir primary objectives to potential borrowers? It would not have been pru-dent for sovereign rentier capitalists to market their products as rent-seek-ing. Neither was it prudent for the sovereign rentier capitalist to call itselfa sovereign rentier capitalist. Consequently, clearly rent-seeking activi-ties have been branded as development finance while the sovereign rentiercapitalist wears the label donor,23 ‘development partner’, while sovereignrentier credit is labelled grant or concessionary lending (Garba 2003a).

What was the role of development thought and advice in the emergentgame of sovereign rentier capitalism? The history of sovereign rentier cap-italism of the last half century leads us to conclude that orthodox develop-ment thought and development advice, by design or by default, servedsovereign rentier capitalists that sought their services in creating and


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sustaining the demand for sovereign rentier capital. Influential develop-ment theories such as the vicious cycle of poverty model deepen fatal-ism by its conclusion that poor nations are trapped in a vicious cycle andcan only escape with outside help. The gap models then help to create thedemand for sovereign rentier capital by encouraging a habit of depend-ence as the models offer sovereign borrowing as a panacea to closingsavings– investment and foreign exchange gaps. The role of the simpletool for estimating financing gaps – the Revised Minimum StandardModel – in sovereign rentier capitalism is well documented. Even in thefourth phase of development advice – or, to be more specific, sovereignrentier capitalism – the model remains a key tool used by the leadingagent of sovereign rentier capitalists – the World Bank24 – to estimate thedemand for sovereign rentier capital by each potential customer.25

If the key motivation for sovereign rentier capitalism is economic rent,then sovereign lending embodied in tied services and goods (durable andnon-durable) and the advice that facilitated the exchange would gener-ate more economic rent than economic or social development. It is clearfrom the history of sovereign rentier capitalism that each phase of ortho-dox development advice corresponded to: (a) distinct phases in the growthof sovereign rentier capitalism; and (b) specific lending products of theWorld Bank – the coordinating institution for sovereign rentier capitalism.The product names for the key lending programmes in the four phasesare: (a) programming and planning; (b) basic needs and safety nets; (c) struc-tural adjustment programme; and (d) poverty reduction strategy paper.

It is generally accepted that: (a) the pace of social development in Africawas highest in the first decade of independence; and (b) the pace of devel-opment reversed under the third advice. By the period of the third advice,The General Theory and its ethical commitments have been supplantedby the neoclassical paradigm and its commitment to capitalism. Social pol-icy was not even a residual and development no longer a primary issue:stabilization, allocative efficiency and growth were the primary issueson the open agenda. However, the primary objective from the point of viewof sovereign rentier capitalism is control of policy making (Toye 1991). Thethreat of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)and the agitations for a new international economic order gave way underthe pressure of external debt and diminishing freedom of SSA states to aforced acceptance of structural adjustment which widened and deepenedopportunities for private and sovereign rentier capitalisms.

The effects of the third advice prepared grounds for the fourth advice,which appear to reinstate poverty and equity issues. Viewed from the his-tory of orthodox development advice, the regressing social development


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path of SSA would not, and could not, be reversed by the fourth orfour � i (i � 1, 2, . . . , n)th advice. Any expectations that sovereign rentiercapitalism would reverse the path of social development in SSA clearlyhave no foundations in the objective realities of the game of sovereignrentier capitalism, which orthodox development advice serves. The his-tory of sovereign rentier capitalism and of the global economy in thelast half century support the conclusion that sovereign rentier capitalismand social development in SSA and in marginalized nations of the worldare mutually exclusive. In other words, sovereign rentier capitalism tendsto produce social underdevelopment in SSA and in the nations that itpenetrates. Orthodox development advice has evolved as a complementof sovereign rentier capitalism and has aided the penetration of sovereignrentier capitalism beginning with programming and planning, then to sec-toral and social policy, through to macroeconomic policy and, presently, toinstitutional changes and poverty reduction strategy. While the sovereign ren-tier capitalist and coordinating institutions benefit by expropriating sur-plus, the orthodox advisers/development economists acquire a laboratoryfor experiments and benefits from grants and peer recognition.

The penetration of sovereign rentier capitalism is obviously incre-mental and the deeper and wider the penetration, the more difficult it isfor the post-colonial state in SSA to engineer social development. Neitherthe sovereign rentier capitalist, coordinating institutions nor orthodoxdevelopment adviser has incentives to engineer social development inAfrica. In fact, given the historical pay-off structure, the global state, globalsocial order and the weakness of SSA states, it is irrational for the sover-eign rentier capitalist, coordinating institutions and the orthodox devel-opment adviser to help in engineering the social development of SSA orany other less developed region.

2.6 Conclusion

To engineer social development, it would seem that two strategic optionswere open to newly independent SSA states: (i) dependence on a state’sown intellectual and financial capital; or (ii) dependence on foreign intel-lectual and financial capital. The evaluation of the paradigms that influ-enced social development of SSA lead us to conclude that, indeed, thefirst option was largely closed to SSA states, particularly after the failureof the Nationalists in the Casablanca Group to convince the members inthe Monrovia Group to adopt a unified strategy to deal with the global chal-lenges to development. The limit on choice was partly a consequence ofstrategic actions of, on the one hand, a growing global alliance of


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rational and prudent sovereign rentier capitalists and, on the other, pas-sive, naïve and fatalistic SSA state agents. The setting was clearly con-ducive to the emergence of sovereign rentier capitalism and the shiftingmainstream played significant supportive roles in the development of sov-ereign rentier capital.

At least five main conclusions could be drawn from the chapter. First, the social policy of a majority of SSA countries for most of the post-colonial period had their roots in the shifting mainstream develop-ment advice. Secondly, although the shifting mainstream was a primarydeterminant of the path of social policy and social development of post-colonial SSA countries, it has proven to be more effective in generatingeconomic rent to the principals (OECD governments) and agents (devel-opment financial institutions, economists, institutes and SSA state agents)of sovereign rentier capitalism. Therefore, the unstable and regressivepath of social policy and of social development in post-colonial SSA coun-tries could be linked to sovereign rentier capitalism, its motivations andto the inherent weaknesses in SSA states.

Fourthly, the Nationalists’ notion and understanding of developmentas well as their development strategies were superior to those of the shift-ing mainstream. It has, for instance, become clear that the Nationalistswere decades ahead of the new generation of development economistsin terms of broad conceptualization of development and the significancethe Nationalists attached to knowledge, human capital formation andproductivity in the development process. There is, therefore, no basis forSSA state agents genuinely committed to social development of their coun-tries to depend on foreign intellectual and financial capital to engineersocial development.

Finally, while the Nationalists’ perspective was biased in favour ofsocial policy and social development, it was a threat to the interests ofthe sovereign rentier capitalists then engaged in a struggle for globalsupremacy with the Warsaw Pact. Clearly, therefore, the strategic responseto the threat posed by Nationalists’ perspective and Nationalists, throughassassinations and forceful change of governments, was rational andprudent, albeit immoral. However, the strategic response could notsimultaneously develop sovereign rentier capitalism and engineer socialdevelopment. It follows, therefore, that the regression of social develop-ment of post-colonial SSA provides strong evidence that dependence onforeign intellectual and financial capital would be more likely to advancethe interests of sovereign rentier capitalists and their agents than to pro-duce the type of social policy that can facilitate the social developmentof SSA countries.


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What, then, is the future for social development in SSA? It is clear fromour analysis that given the historical pay-off structure, the nature of theglobal state, global social order and the weakness of SSA states, it is ir-rational for the sovereign rentier capitalist, coordinating institutionsand the orthodox development adviser to help in engineering the socialdevelopment of SSA or any other less developed region. The challenge,therefore, lies in part in overcoming fatalistic delusions and the habit ofdependence nurtured by sovereign rentier capitalism. Simply put, theeuthanasia of sovereign rentier capitalism is critical to the social under-development of regions of the world such as SSA.

We end by posing a number of questions, hoping that those contem-plating the future of SSA may find them useful. First, do current states inSSA have the ability and willingness to be more strategic in their thinking,planning and actions in engaging sovereign rentier capitalists? Secondly,if the answer to the question is no, what then is the future for the popu-lation in SSA? Thirdly, would a developmental state–society nexusemerge at some point in the future of SSA if the global social order remainsessentially unchanged? Fourthly, under what domestic and internationalconditions could the desired state–society nexus become concrete inSSA? Finally, would current SSA states survive in their current forms pro-ducing contrasting pay-offs for own population on one hand, and sov-ereign rentier capitalists and their agents on the other?

Notes

1 The Monrovia Group consisted of Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Togo, Côted’Ivoire, Cameroon, Senegal, Dahomey, Malagasy Republic, Chad, UpperVolta, Niger and People’s Republic of Congo, as well as Gabon, Central AfricanRepublic, Ethiopia, Somalia and Tunisia.

2 The members were Ghana, Mali, Guinea, the United Arab Republic and theAlgerian Provisional Government.

3 An advice, while intangible, manifests in tangible exchanges (intellectual andfinancial capital as well as goods). Like products, each advice has a life cycle –development and introduction, growth, maturity and decline. Once an advicebegins to decline, a new advice becomes necessary.

4 Krueger’s argument is that: ‘Once it is recognized that individuals respond toincentives, and that “market failure” is the result of inappropriate incentivesrather than nonresponsiveness, the separateness of development economicsas a field largely disappears’.

5 In Garba and Garba (2002) and in Garba (2004) we advanced the argument thatgiven resource constraints, financing the Cold War games and races (arms,space, propaganda, proxy wars, and so on) impose constraints on social policies


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and welfare of citizens. Further, that unless costs could be outsourced, athreshold of crowding-out of social welfare would be reached wherein, theCold War becomes unsustainable. We argued that development finance anddevelopment advice is far more effective in outsourcing the costs of the ColdWar through a positive net resource outflow to the rentier capitalists (finan-cial and human).

6. This includes the formation in 1957 (same year Ghana became independ-ence) of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to aid ‘less-developedmembers by promoting private enterprise in their economies’ by providingrisk capital and the creation in 1960 – just before most SSA countries becameindependent – of an International Development Association (IDA) as an affiliateof the World Bank to provide ‘funds for development projects on conces-sionary terms to the poorer developing member countries’. It also includesthe formation in 1961 of the OECD whose members pledged, ‘to work to pro-mote economic growth, aid developing nations, and expand world trade’ aswell as the national development agencies such as DFID, USAID etc.

7. Two attributes define rationality as conceived in orthodox economics: self-ishness and hedonism.

8. The idea that SSA nations were exploitative opportunities supports thenationalist position that neocolonization and imperialism were real and thatcountries of the SSA were targets of neocolonialism and imperialism.

9. For instance, New Growth Theory is at least three decades behind the nation-alists in endogenizing human capital, knowledge and technology. Sen (2001:506) only affirmed the nationalist position when he wrote ‘Freedom is notthe ultimate end of development; it is also a crucially effective means.’

10. In the orthodox theory of choice, the choosing agent (consumer or pro-ducer) chooses independently of all other agents, the underlying assumptionbeing that agents do not have or exercise market power. Consequently, allagents are passive: they make their choices without worrying about the con-sequences of their choices on other agents or the reactions of other agents totheir choices. The orthodox choice theory, clearly, is inappropriate in inter-national economic games.

11. The set of economic challenges include the lack of a vibrant private sector,weak markets, weak endogenous technical capacities, low human capital andtrade dependence.

12. The commodity problem was a key factor in the formation of the UnitedNations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the advo-cacy for a New International Economic Order (NIEO) in the late 1960s toearly 1970s. Had the agitation succeeded, a NIEO could have altered theessence of the international economic games.

13. In the short run (in terms of foregone welfare) as well as in the long run (interms of foregone capacity to undertake autonomous policy that has becomeassociated with the external debt problem).

14. Even neoclassical economics recognizes that with altruistic references, thechoice set is defined over non-commodity space (see, for instance, Frank 1997).

15. I have chosen Keynes as a contrast to the neoclassical paradigm because theevolution of macroeconomics from the neoclassical synthesis produced amacroeconomics in the image of neoclassical economics.

16. The classicals before Keynes assumed that prices were flexible and flexibilityof prices would guarantee full employment. In addition, the classicals seemed


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to justify unequal income distributions on the ground that a high savingsrate was conducive to capital accumulation and economic growth and only therich could have high savings rates. In classical macroeconomics, therefore,equity and efficiency were in conflict.

17. The synthesis focuses on the four so-called macroeconomic goals (full employ-ment, economic growth, price stability and external balance) which are com-monly classified into internal and external balance.

18. Equilibrium theory (and welfare analysis) preceded and offer departure pointsfor the bounded rationality of Herbert Simon; the experimental psychology stud-ies of Kerneman and Tversky; the imperfect information literature (Arrow 1963;Akerlof 1970; Stiglitz 1987; Laffont 1989; Barr 1992, and so on) and the pub-lic choice theory (Downs 1957; Buchanan 1962, 1977; Stigler 1971). The equi-librium model is ethically committed to the ideology of liberalism andutilitarianism and metaphysical and heuristic commitments to homo eco-nomicus, subjective valuation, perfect competition and formal ontology (seeGarba 2003b). The commitments have profound implications for its socialpolicy and social policy outcomes. The Herbert Simon’s challenge and theexperimental psychological studies raise doubts about the metaphysical andheuristic commitments of equilibrium theory. However, they have not yetpenetrated the state–market relations and associated social policy and socialpolicy outcomes preferred, advocated and defended by leading orthodoxthinkers and advocates of laissez-faire.

19. Kanbur (2001) offers insight into the politics of the 2001 Report.20. By bold reform, the World Bank and the West mean that states should do less

for their citizens, ignore the preferences of citizens and be submissive to theWest and their preferred solutions.

21. This is because the guardian state would have to resist private and sovereignrentier capitalists at great social costs. This could lead, in the case of Congo,to the assassination of the leader and engineered economic, social and polit-ical crises, including civil wars and military takeovers. Both civil wars andmilitary takeovers were very popular means of increasing social opportunitycosts of guardianship and easing the shift of state from guardianship to a par-tisan actor.

22. Whereas returns from foreign direct investment and portfolio investmentsare directly sensitive to quality of local markets, institutions and policies,returns from sovereign lending inversely related to the quality of local mar-kets, institutions and policies.

23. A set of sovereign rentier capitalists call themselves a donor community.24. According to Easterly (1997), ‘over 90% of country desk economists at the

World Bank . . . use some variant of RMSM (Revised Minimum StandardModel) today to make projections’.

25. Of course, the mainstream development thought refers to estimate producedby the RMSM inappropriately as financing gap. Similarly, sovereign rentiercapitalists and their agents are misclassified as donors and sovereign rentiercapital as development finance or grant. We have shown (Garba 2003) thatprobably ‘the most ingenious strategic move of the (sovereign rentier capit-alist) is its successful marketing of itself as a donor.’ The deliberate inappro-priate use of terms and phrases though unethical, are nonetheless strategicand it succeeds in manipulating fatalists, passive and self-seeking state agentsborrowing on behalf of their countries.

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Ohiohrenuan J.F.E. (2003) ‘Evolutions of Development Thoughts’. In A.G. Garba(ed.), Development Thought, Policy Advice and Economic Development in Africa:Lessons for the 21st Century (Ibadan: University Ibadan Press).

Russell, B. (1945 [1972]) A History of Western Philosophy (New York: Simon andSchuster).

Sen, A. (2001) ‘What is Development About?’. In G.M. Meier and J.E. Stiglitz(eds), Frontiers of Development Economics: The Future Perspectives (New York:Oxford University Press).

Simon, H. (1994) ‘Problems of Methodology – Discussion’. In D.M. Hausman(ed.), The Philosophy of Economics: An Anthology, 2nd edition (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press).

Stambuli, P.K. (2003) Developing ‘Free Market Economies’ in Africa: Review of Progressand Constraints. http://www.unu.edu/africa/papers/development/Stambuli3.pdf,accessed on 11 November.

Stiglitz, J.C. (1987) ‘The Causes and Consequences of Dependence of Quality onprice’, Journal of Economic Literature, 25(1), 1–48.

Timmer, P.C. (1973) ‘Choice of Technique in Rice Milling in Java’, Bulletin ofIndonesian Economic Studies 9, 2 July, 57–76.

Toye, J. (1991) ‘Comment’. In Gerald. M. Meier (ed.), Politics and Policy Making inDeveloping Countries: Perspectives on the New Political Economy (San Francisco,CA: ICS Press).

Wade, R.H. (2001) ‘The Making of World Development Report 2000: AttackingPoverty’, World Development, 29(8).

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3Social Policy and Development inEast Africa: the Case of Educationand Labour Market PoliciesChachage Seithy L. Chachage

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3.1 Introduction

Several approaches to the role of social policy – including provision ofeducation and employment – have emerged in the past 200 years or so.The functional approach has mainly focused on the problems that affectthe smooth reproduction of a socioeconomic system, with an emphasison how to deal with those problems that cause instability and imbalancesin a society, since these are indicators of disorganization and deviance(George and Wilding 1976). In this context, a social policy is what con-stitutes the solution to the social problem. The functional approach tosocial policy is an old one, associated with the problem of social order andsocial control. This approach has always been anti-collectivist and pro-individualist, in that it rejects all interference with the market forces inthe name of freedom and efficiency. Within this context, social welfareis residual.

The pragmatic approach of social policy is associated with T.H. Marshall’stradition, initiated in the post-Second World War period. For Marshall,social policy was the ‘policy of the governments with regard to action hav-ing a direct impact on the welfare of citizens by providing them withservices or income’ (Marshall 1967: 6). Social policy included the stateprovision of social security, housing, education, income, health and per-sonal services. In this regard, state intervention in social provisioning wasaccepted in Europe. In a way, this was a response to the East Europeansocialist countries, where social policies had been largely built into theoperation of the economy by means of full employment, public provision-ing of social services and subsidized prices. Unlike in the East Europeancountries, despite that acceptance of state intervention in the West, thefunctioning of the market economies was taken for granted: the issue at

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stake was how to distribute resources, status and power among differentsections/groups in a society within the existing order (Mishra 1981).

It was partly on the basis of such approaches in Europe that the WorldBank formulated the model for accumulation and accelerated develop-ment in Africa and East Africa – specifically in the 1960s. The model stressedthe need for state intervention as a means to achieving development – aprocess which required the concentration of powers in the executive armof the state, while at the same time delivering social services, industriesand infrastructure to the people. In return, people were expected to accepta high degree of social and economic control and to offer unified politicalloyalty. In other words, social policies were inextricably linked to theprocess of development, which in turn was dependent on the existence ofunity among the people, expressed in the form of a state project.

With the beginning of the world crisis in the 1970s, African countrieswere forced to implement the World Bank/International Monetary Fund(IMF)-sponsored free market policies under the guise of StructuralAdjustment Programmes (SAPs). These policies aimed at freeing privatecapital, whose operation had been subject to state regulation in the firstdecade of independence. With the protection and creation of enablingenvironment for the operation of private capital (local and foreign),increasingly, wealth was to be concentrated in a few hands at the expenseof the majority of the producers in rural and urban areas who were facingruination. This process was accompanied by the devaluation of the cur-rencies, price controls, reduction and exemption of various taxes forinvestors, imposition of various forms of taxation for the producers, intro-duction of user-charge fees (so-called cost-sharing in health, education,and so on), removal of subsidies for inputs for the rural producers and foodfor the urban working people, control of wage increases, retrenchment ofworkers in the civil and public sector, and so on.

Social policies that stood for the public provisioning of social serviceswere more or less abandoned, with the implementation of SAPs. This studyexamines social policy in the context of development as far as educationand labour markets are concerned in East Africa – Tanzania (independ-ent since 1961),1 Uganda (independent since 1962) and Kenya (inde-pendent since 1963). Its specific focus is on higher learning institutions.The aim is to answer the question: ‘How can social policies be used to enhancesocial capacities for economic development without in the process, eroding theintrinsic values of the social ends that policy makers purport to address?’(Mkandawire 2001: iii). According to the World Bank (1989: 190), ‘Africa’slack of technical skills and strong public and private institutions accountsmore than anything else for its current predicament.’2


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3.2 Independence, higher education and labour markets

The three East African countries – Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda – have ashared history in that they were all under British rule (with Tanganyika –Tanzania since 1964 after the union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar –falling under British rule in 1919 after the defeat of the Germans duringthe First World War). While Tanganyika and Uganda were essentially peas-ant colonies, Kenya was a settler colony. Given the European presencein Kenya, Britain had made Kenya and its capital city, Nairobi, the focusof East African development at the expense of Tanganyika and Uganda.Notwithstanding the fact that Kenya was the focus of colonial activitiesas a settler colony, the history of higher education in East Africa startedwith the establishment of Makerere Technical School in Uganda in 1922to serve the four East African colonies. The aim was to meet the need for amiddle cadre of civil servants beyond clerks, messengers and interpreters(Nwauwa 1996).

Makerere’s early graduates easily found jobs in missions or in the admin-istration of the East African countries. Following pressures from the chieflyelite for education that went beyond vocational and technical needs, theschool was expanded into a Higher College for East Africa, awarding dip-lomas and certificates in 1937 (ibid.). From carpentry, mechanics and build-ing, the college expanded its curriculum to include awards in science,preclinical medicine, engineering and agriculture. It was in 1949 thatMakerere Higher College attained the status of a university college, for thewhole of East Africa, awarding degrees of the University of London.Tanzania (then Tanganyika) established the University College of Dar esSalaam in 1961, starting with the Faculty of Law. In the same year, theRoyal Technical College in Nairobi, previously confined to engineeringand architectural studies, became a university college offering degreecourses in arts, sciences, engineering, and architecture. Makerere UniversityCollege joined with universities in Kenya and Tanzania to form theUniversity of East Africa (UEA) in 1963. It was in 1970 that the three col-leges became fully fledged universities – the Makerere University (MU),Nairobi University (NU) and Dar es Salaam University (UDSM).

These developments in the 1960s were taking place at a time wheneconomists were arguing that high levels of education and training arecrucial determinants of a country’s economic growth, given the devel-opment of the human capital theory (Becker 1964). Education was per-ceived to be a means to social and economic development at the nationallevel; a way to employment opportunities at a personal level; and a meansto forging national cohesion and reducing the inequalities left by the

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colonial legacy. This led to the prioritization of educational development,and, especially, higher education. This prioritization was a reflection ofthe urgent need to fill the human resources gap left following the depart-ure of the colonial civil servants and the rapidly rising demand for a skilledlabour force to support the policy of Import Substitution Industrialization(ISI) pursued since the 1950s. During these years, these East African coun-tries had a severe deficit of trained and competent human resourcesbecause there were very few educated people. Most vital functions (70 percent in the government and other sectors) were carried out by foreigners.

Thus, education was linked to labour markets/employment and devel-opment in general. In this regard, public policy on educational develop-ment became a precondition for overall development. The belief wasthat education was the key to the achievement/growth in other sectorsand that it could stimulate their growth. New higher learning institu-tions were established and old ones were expanded to meet the require-ments for skilled human resources. Beyond this, there was an ideologicalshift and transformations in the curriculum to reflect the new national-ist spirit in some of these institutions. The period 1967–75 in Tanzania,for example, witnessed UDSM develop into one of the most vibrant uni-versities internationally. During this period, UDSM acquired a reputa-tion for scholarship that espoused causes and issues related to liberation,social justice and economic development.

In these years, there were attempts to make the university a vehicle fordevelopment. After independence, the supply of the secondary and post-secondary-educated (technical, commercial and higher education) becamethe primary focus of human resources planning. Consequently, publiccontrol of education and efforts to determine the type of education thatwould foster development became the hallmark. The result was thatexpenditure on education as a percentage of gross national product (GNP)increased rapidly from 1960 to the early 1970s. It rose from 2.3 per centto 3.9 per cent from 1960 to 1974 in developing countries, compared to4.0 per cent to 5.7 per cent in developed countries over the same period.Average government expenditure for 21 Sub-Saharan African (SSA) coun-tries (including Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda) was 21.1 per cent of theirGNP in the first decade of independence (Maliyamkono et al. 1982: 1).

With such social policies, the East African countries’ development modelin the first decade of independence stressed the need for state interven-tion in the economy and social provisioning as a means of achievingdevelopment it became possible to ‘Africanize’ most of the positions inthe public service in many countries by the early 1970s. Kenya’s real grossdomestic product (GDP) grew at an average of more than 7 per cent in


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the 1960s, whereas average domestic prices rose by only 3.4 per centannually. The GDP growth was spearheaded by an 8.5 per cent growthin the manufacturing sector, and a robust 5 per cent growth in the agri-cultural sector. The external payment balances were healthy, despite aminimal balance-of-payment crisis in 1971 (Barkan 1994).

Despite the lack of support from foreign investors in Tanzania in thefirst decade after independence, there was a growth of value added ofmore than 13 per cent annually in manufacturing for the period 1965 to1974, as a result of the government’s direct involvement in economicventures. The growth rate in the manufacturing sector during this periodwas 7.5 per cent annually. Between 1965 and 1975 the percentage shareof agriculture in GDP fell from 42 per cent to 36 per cent, while that ofmanufacturing rose from 4 per cent to 11 per cent between 1961 and1975. The balance of payments position during this period was quitehealthy. It was in this regard that a 20 years basic industrialization planwas prepared by 1971 (ILO 1978: 84–5).

In Uganda, the economy grew at an average annual GDP rate of 5.1per cent between 1961 and 1970. The balance of payments position ofthe country was strong and the country had the lowest cost of living inEast Africa. By the end of the 1960s, commercial agriculture accountedfor more than one-third of GDP, and industrial output had increased tonearly 9 per cent of GDP, primarily as a result of new food processingindustries. The manufacturing sector was small (7.2 per cent of GDP), butit was the fastest-growing sector – at 11.7 per cent per annum. It was dom-inated by the processing of primary products and the production ofbasic consumer goods (Hansen and Twaddle 1988).

3.3 The crisis of welfarism and its impact onhigher education

The world began to face an economic crisis in the early 1970s. Africa andother less developed countries were the most vulnerable to these changesin global conditions, since they had the most ‘open economies’, whichwere commodity dependent, relying for over 90 per cent of their exportearnings on the trade in one or two commodities. With the onset of thecrisis, the terms of trade for Africa fell more sharply. While these weremore or less constant between 1965 and 1973, they declined by 23 per centbetween 1973 and 1982. The fall was sharp in 1986 (26.3 per cent), andthis translated into a loss of US$19 billion in foreign exchange earnings(Zeleza 1997: 300). In this way, the total debt for SSA countries jumpedfrom US$21.1 billion in 1976 to US$137.8 billion in 1987, and the ratio


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of external debt to GDP increased from 45 per cent in 1981 to 66.1 per centin 1986 (Bangura 1992: 91).

With East Africa, beyond the international conditions, there were his-torical factors within the region and the countries that exacerbated thesituation. These countries had been under the East African CommonServices Organization (EACSO), which existed from 1961 to 1965.3 TheEACSO arrangements collapsed in 1965, because Kenya’s privileged posi-tion since the colonial period greatly frustrated Tanzania and Uganda.EASCO was replaced by the East African Community (EAC) in 1967 andits headquarters were established in Arusha (Tanzania). Among the statedgoals of the EAC were to redress the historical imbalances between mem-bers by allowing the protection of some of the infant industries in Kenyaand Uganda. It became responsible for the common market, communi-cations, economics and planning, finance, and research and socialaffairs (Hazlewood 1975).

However, relations between Tanzania and Uganda deteriorated follow-ing the ascendancy of Idi Amin to power through a coup in 1971. In 1972a short war ensued between Tanzania and Uganda. In late 1978, Ugandanforces invaded north-west Tanzania, and the two countries began a warwhich lasted for eight months and led to the removal of Amin in 1979.Tanzania spent US$500 million on financing the war. Relations betweenTanzania and Kenya began to sour in 1975 and, consequently, the borderbetween them was closed in 1976, and remained closed until 1984.Conflicts between Uganda and Kenya began in 1976 when Amin claimedthat some areas of Kenya and Sudan were historically part of Uganda,and they led to a blockade of the landlocked country. As a result of thesedevelopments, the EAC collapsed in 1977. When the shares of assets andliabilities were eventually apportioned, Kenya received 42 per cent, Uganda26 per cent and Tanzania 32 per cent.

The three countries began to face the crisis at different times for seem-ingly different reasons, although the economic reforms and structuraladjustment that were to be undertaken in all these countries from the1980s were, in many respects, similar. The crisis had both exogenous andendogenous factors, and was marked by increasing balance of paymentsand fiscal and budgetary management difficulties. These arose from dimin-ishing export earnings and an increased burden of debt servicing. Thesymptoms of the crisis were: a gap in the balance of payments, low uti-lization of industrial capacity, shortage of essential consumer goods(especially in Tanzania and Uganda), a fall in food and export crops pro-duction, inflation, and a deterioration in the general living conditionsof the people (Barkan 1994; Ochieng 1985).


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The first country to face the crisis was Uganda. It was followed byTanzania and, finally, Kenya. Following the military coup which saw thetoppling of Milton Obote by Idi Amin Dada in 1971, Uganda’s economywas almost incapacitated between 1971 and 1980: on top of the worldcrisis, civil war and political instability almost destroyed Uganda’s econ-omy. 1971–79 was a period characterized by killings, the destruction ofinfrastructure, the depletion of social services, the impoverishment ofpeasants and workers, and the decline in the production of commod-ities. There was also an increased public expenditure on military goodsduring this period; a practice that contributed to escalating foreign anddomestic debts. Foreign investments declined sharply, as policies destroyedalmost all but the subsistence sector of the economy. Approximately 70,000Ugandan Asians of Indian and Pakistani descent were expelled from thecountry in 1972. Most of these had been active in agribusiness, manufac-turing, and commerce. Their property fell in the hands of the governmentand military personnel (ibid.; Mamdani 1983).

When Amin’s regime was toppled in 1979, Uganda’s GDP was only 80per cent of the 1970 level. Industrial output had declined sharply, as equip-ment, spare parts, and raw materials had become scarce. The governmentwas faced with immense problems, including the shutdown of factoriesand falls in production in all sectors; a breakdown of distributional chan-nels; acute shortages of all manufactured goods; exorbitant prices beingcharged for virtually all commodities; corruption and mismanagement;and smuggling and parallel marketeering (magendo). In addition therewere other financial problems: excess supply of money over the avail-ability of commodities; a very skewed income distribution; a balance ofpayments crisis; huge external debts; cumulative government deficit ofUshs 18 billion; rampant unemployment; destroyed social and physicalinfrastructure; insecurity of life and property; a seriously damaged pub-lic administration; and moral degeneration. The inflation rate stood at100 per cent by 1981. Wage and salary earners’ incomes were so low thatthey could hardly last one week (ibid.).

The Tanzanian post-independence development model had registeredsome growth rates up to the mid-1970s, especially in the manufacturingsector. With such developments, it had become difficult for agricultureto sustain any further import expansion by 1974 as no significant tech-nical transformations had taken place within the sector. Thus in 1974,export volume fell by 35 per cent. By 1980, the value of exports was equiva-lent to only 43 per cent of the imports and the trade gap was over TZS6 billion. Similarly, industrial capacity utilization was between 30 percent and 50 per cent and manufacturing accounted for only 5.8 per cent of


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GDP. Foreign reserves had peaked at US$281.8 million in 1977, but theyfell to US$99.9 million in 1978 and finally to US$20.3 million in 1980. Thelatter ‘was less than one week’s worth of foreign exchange needed tocover the average import bill’ (Stein 1990: 5). By 1982, the inflation ratewas around 20 per cent.

The break-up of the EAC and the Ugandan war contributed substan-tially to the problems of Tanzania. The former compelled the country tocreate new economic facilities that were previously shared – includingan airline. The war created severe shortages of foodstuffs and commod-ities and set the country back by eight to ten months in terms of its pay-ments to foreign creditors. At the same time, the rich and the powerfulwere enriching themselves through public institutions, which increasinglyexisted in a private form as a result of corruption and embezzlement, tothe extent that the number of private business companies had risen from880 in 1974 to 16,007 in the mid-1980s (Chachage 1986: 457). Tanzaniawas in a deep economic crisis by 1980. The symptoms of the crisis were:deterioration in the balance of trade, a fall in agricultural production(food and export crops), negative per capita growth, high inflation rates,shortages of essential consumer goods, low industrial capacity utilization,deterioration in the budgetary position and general deterioration of theconditions of the working people.

Kenya experienced slower growth in merchandise trade in the late 1970sand 1980s, but did not suffer like the other East African countries duringthis period, since the economy was expanding at an annual rate of only4.5 per cent. Inflation increased at an average rate of 11 per cent from 1974to 1990, then accelerated sharply after that: from about 20 per cent in1991, it shot up to 101 per cent in 1993. This was a result of several factors,including the deceleration in economic growth – from about 5 per centin the late 1980s to 2.3 per cent in 1991 and only 0.1 per cent in 1993(Barkan 1994: 109). Average agricultural growth rates, which had stoodat 10 per cent between 1964 and 1979, had dropped to an average of3 per cent between 1990 and 1995 (Njeru 2001: 113). Kenya’s externaldebt had reached US$6.8 billion by 1990, of which almost 70 per centwas long-term credit to the public sector or publicly guaranteed credit.Debt service charges, which stood at 4 per cent of the export earnings in1974, had risen to 21 per cent by 1980. By the early 1990s, debt servicecharges constituted about one-third of the export earnings, and theycontinued to rise throughout the decade. Meanwhile, the growth rate ofexport crop production had declined by nearly 30 per cent in 1997.

With the crisis, in the case of Uganda, as the economy deteriorated andviolence increased, the education system suffered the effects of economic


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decline and political instability during the 1970s and 1980s. Consequently,education suffered at all levels: the physical infrastructure necessary foreducation was absent, and the quality of education had declined. Educa-tion infrastructure maintenance standards suffered, lecturers and teachersfled the country, morale and productivity deteriorated along with realincomes, and many facilities were damaged by warfare and vandalism.The Vice Chancellor of Makerere University was killed in early 1972, andthe lives of many educated and professional people were under constantthreat. By the end of Amin’s regime in 1979, more than 500,000 peoplehad been killed, while thousands of educated people had gone into exile.

The political conditions of the 1970s, combined with the global eco-nomic recession which had begun in the mid-1970s, resulted in a drasticreduction of the state budget to educational institutions in Uganda. Thissituation was to continue into the 1980s, in the face of a dramatic increasein the demand for higher education and rise in enrolment. In the 1980sMakerere University had expanded to include colleges of liberal arts andmedicine, serving more than 5,000 students. In 1986 the College of Com-merce was separated from Makerere to become the National College ofBusiness Studies, and, at the same time, the National Teachers’ Collegebecame a separate Institute of Teachers’ Education. In 1980 these insti-tutions enrolled 5,750 post-secondary students. In late 1989, a secondnational university campus was opened in Mbarara. By 1989 total enrol-ment at the various institutions was an estimated 8,900 students.

The increased enrolment was not matched by a corresponding growthin financial and material resources. As far as the infrastructure and otheramenities were concerned, laboratories lacked the necessary facilities,libraries had acute shortages of books and other materials, there werechronic shortages of educational materials, and halls of residence andlecture and seminar rooms were overcrowded. In addition, lecturers andprofessors were paid meagre salaries and were subjected to harsh work-ing and living conditions to the extent that some migrated to greenerpastures and others opted to moonlight. Consequently, lectures, seminarsand tutorials, student supervision and staff–student contact sufferedgreatly; and there was no time at all for research and academic forums.

In the case of Tanzania, by the early 1980s the different sections of theUDSM community (the only public university in the early 1980s) wereworking under deep-seated grievances, discontent and generally lowmorale and spirits. Among symptoms of the disease that afflicted theUDSM were: apathy, neglect of staff and students’ welfare, internal undemo-cratic decision-making procedures, bureaucratic inefficiency and redtape, and bureaucratic domination. These symptoms were a manifestation


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of the shifts in the debates from development issues to power politics,partly reflecting the emerging positions of the pro-IMF and anti-IMFpositions of the intellectuals, politicians and bureaucrats in the wholecountry.

By the early 1990s, the number of public universities stood at three,following the establishment of Sokoine University of Agriculture and theOpen University of Tanzania. Because of the economic woes that beganin the late 1970s and escalated throughout the 1980s and the cuts inspending in social services introduced in the 1980s, UDSM’s total funds aswell as the level of funds per student declined sharply during the period,with a two-thirds decline in funding in the period 1984–1993, for exam-ple. Academic staff numbers dropped by one-fifth in the post-1986period, whereas student numbers increased by over 60 per cent duringthe same period. The faculty was living and working under conditions ofdrastically reduced below-subsistence real wages which were forcingsome of them to migrate or find extra-academic employment/activities.At UDSM, 95 and 97 academic members of staff left the university between1980 and 1989, and 1990 and 1999, respectively. During these two decades,UDSM suffered from a dearth of books and other teaching materials andequipment, along with many other goods in the country, which hadbecome rare commodities. It became characterized by inadequate teach-ing personnel, low levels of staff development and motivation, poor infra-structure, and so on. As a result of inflation, the total value of salaries fellby 47 per cent during the decade. Other budget items, including staffdevelopment, office stationery and examination expenses, fell from49 per cent of recurrent expenditure to 30 per cent over the same period,seriously impacting on the quality of teaching and learning. The donors’share of development expenditure of the university grew from 65 per centin 1984 to 92 per cent by 1993.

In Kenya, the full financing of higher education ended in 1974, beingreplaced by a policy of cost-sharing. Within this context, the governmentpaid tuition fees and released loans for catering and accommodation.Given the populist policies of the government, increased enrolment inthe pre-university schools caused university enrolment to grow rapidly inthe 1970s and 1980s – beyond the capacity of the four public universities.For example, while the universities planned to admit 3,000 students in1988, the government insisted on them admitting 7,201. The univer-sities were supposed to admit the same number in the following yearand they doubled the enrolment in 1990. Thus, from a total enrolmentof just over 2,000 students at the only public university in the early1970s the enrolment figure stood at 41,000 by 1991 (Barkan, 1994: 204).


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The 1974 policy was scrapped in 1991, when Kenya embarked upon theimplementation of SAPs in education. The government stopped payingtuition fees and giving automatic loans to all students, except those whocould prove that they cannot meet the costs their fees in full or in part.This rapid expansion of enrolment in the public universities was causinggovernment expenditure in higher education to rise dramatically. Fromfour public universities in 1990, the number had risen by 1999 tofive (University of Nairobi, Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Jomo KenyattaUniversity of Agriculture and Technology, Egerton University, and MoiUniversity). This increased number of universities and expanded enrol-ments were taking place at a time when government budgetary allocationfor development expenditure in the universities was falling on an annualbasis, because of the continued poor performance of Kenya’s economy.

With the implementation of SAPs, the government was required toincrease enrolment as a means to increase access to higher education,and at the same time to slash government spending on the sector.Consequently, the quality of the programmes being offered by the uni-versities began to fall, since the universities were being forced to con-centrate their meagre funds on salaries at the expense of library andequipment acquisitions, basic research and facilities maintenance. Thisresulted in large classes in virtually all departments, which rendered thedelivery of courses and evaluation of the students difficult, inefficient andineffective. More than that, even the usual interaction between the staffand the students became impossible. The falling standards of education,poor working conditions of the staff, run-down infrastructure, lack of aca-demic freedom and, eventually, the prospects of the graduates beingunemployed, led to frustrations among students and staff. As a result,Kenya was riddled with strikes and confrontations between students andstaff on the one hand and the university authorities and the govern-ment on the other, leading to periodic long closures of the universities.

3.4 Higher education and labour markets

When the cuts in higher education expenditure were introduced in the1980s, it was at a time when these were increased shortages of qualifiedpeople. Along with the cuts in education there were policies to depress wagesand to retrench workers. With the crisis, the operations of labour mar-kets internationally were eroding the gains that had been made in mostAfrican countries. This phenomenon helps us to understand why therewere an increased number of expatriate personnel deployed to Africancountries as part of the aid packages from the 1980s, despite the fact that


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the costs of expatriate technical assistants were very high at both indi-vidual and aggregate levels.

Most of the foreign personnel earned ten times as much as the salariesof government ministers and civil servants. A high-ranking United NationsChildren’s Fund (UNICEF) had the following to say on the costs of theexpatriates in Tanzania in 1989:

I believe that the bulk of technical experts and expertise at presentprovided by the UN and donor system has outlived their usefulness . . .judged by the criteria for which they have been provided: the provisionof specific technical expertise or experience which is not available amongnationals of the country . . . for a limited period until nationals haveacquired the training and expertise to take over the job. . . [Far] fromdiminishing, the numbers of technical experts provided has growndecade-by-decade since the 1950s . . .

[Costs have] have reached extraordinary disproportions. In Tanzania,for example, the total costs of technical assistance in 1988 was some$300 million, of which at least $200 million represented the salaries,per diems, housing allowances, air travel and other direct costs of the1,000 or so international experts provided as the core of technical assist-ance. In contrast to the total salary cost of the whole civil service inTanzania in the same year, including administrators, clerical staff, teach-ers and health workers, was $100 million. The situation in Tanzaniais not untypical . . .

(in Berg 1993: 14–15)

Demand for technical assistance, which more often than not was lessqualified than local personnel at managerial and other policy-makinglevels, was the result of the inability of the government to attract or retainlocal personnel because of the low salaries and unattractive workingconditions. In one of the reports on technical assistance in 1990, it wasfound out that of the 324 technical assistance positions surveyed inKenya, local personnel could have filled 204 positions. Local people wereavailable to fill those positions, but due to lack of government funds, itwas easier to fill the positions with expatriates (ibid.: 22–3).

The wage and salaries structures of most countries, combined with thestagnation in investments, were resulting in the deterioration of the work-ing conditions offered by African countries with higher level skills. Theresult was that skilled people were seeking positions in internationalmarkets. The net result was dependence on donors to supply expatriate


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personnel, who were highly subsidized. Thus, the human resources problemwas on the increase by the 1980s, at a time when most countries were inno position to fund education, given the conditionalities of the inter-national financial institutions (IFIs). Over the past three decades, Africancountries have become more dependent on a disproportionately largeshare of ‘technical assistance’ to fill the gaps in the various positions andprojects and what has been termed ‘institution and capacity building’after the local institutional capacity had been destroyed in the periods ofeconomic crisis and structural adjustment.

It has reached a position whereby, since the expatriates hired under‘technical assistance’ are heavily subsidized, there are labour market dis-tortions for higher-level skills. The dependence on ‘technical assistance’personnel who are costly, given the incentives provided to them, requiresrecipient governments to pay for consulting services. These market dis-tortions have been accelerating the inflow of expatriates and the outflowof trained Africans. Until about 1980 (with the exception of Uganda,given the war conditions of the 1970s and early 1980s), labour marketsin East Africa were favourable for skilled local people because of the expan-sion of the public services, the push for the replacement of expatriatesand the general expansion of the economies. With the crisis, it has beenobserved that beyond the flight of financial wealth from these countries,investment has remained low over the past years.

According to the conservative estimates of the Bank of Tanzania, by2003 Tanzanians had more than US$2.5 billion outside the country.Ndulu (2002: 165) quoted estimates that showed that nearly 40 per cent ofvaluable private wealth has been leaving Africa. By 1990, nearly US$360billion – or 40 per cent of Africa’s wealth – was outside the continent. Thiswas equivalent to Africa’s debt or 90 per cent of the GDP. The gravity ofthe problem of brain drain can be demonstrated by the situation in thehealth sector in East Africa. Tanzania had less than 1,000 doctors by2003, treating on average 25,000 patients each, while the highest WorldHealth Organization (WHO) recommended ratio is 10,000 patients perdoctor for developing countries. The country had only 66 gynaecologists,80 surgeons, 53 physicians, 47 paediatricians, 13 orthopaedic surgeons and43 specialists in various disciplines. In Kenya and Uganda, the situationwas relatively better: the ratio was 7,000 patients and 6,000 patients to onedoctor, respectively (The East African 03–09 November 2003).

The issues highlighted above amount to a loss of investment in educa-tion: it is a transfer of resources from poor countries to richer ones. Ndulu(2002) cited the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development(UNCTAD) estimates of the annual cash value of each African professional


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migrant, based on 1997 prices, to be US$184,000. With the approximately95,000 African professionals in the United States, Africa is supposed tohave been losing almost US$17.5 billion annually through the braindrain, while receiving technical assistance of only about US$4 billion fromall sources! Accordingly, for every emigrant 10 unskilled labourers losetheir jobs. The fact is, ‘Loss of jobs for semi and unskilled labour force, andreduction in production and incomes result from inadequate supply ofskilled and professional labour, which is a necessary complement to semi-skilled and unskilled labour in production’ (ibid.: 169) This loss in termsof a brain drain has a negative impact on the remaining population andleads to loss of growth and levels of incomes.

The global crisis gave a justification for significant ideological shifts inthe international political economy that had a direct bearing on the roleand organization of higher education which may explain the above situ-ation. The global crisis since the late 1970s and the introduction of marketreforms had led to widespread passive and active resistance of people inmany countries across the world. Consequently, beginning with theAtlantic World, an onslaught on those branches of the sciences – such associology and others dealing with policy studies in general – that wereregarded as promoting dissent ensued. Universities in general were requiredto reinvent their roles and specializations in applied forms. The exceptionwas psychology, which remained relatively unaffected by these develop-ments because of its focus on the individual, which suited the individu-alist ideology that was being promoted by the ‘new’ ideology.

The neoliberal policies developed in the 1980s to cope with the crisisfacing African countries claimed that developing countries, with an abun-dant supply of unskilled labour, had a comparative advantage in the pro-duction of labour-intensive goods and services. Therefore, with increasedlevels of free trade, wages of unskilled labour would increase in thesecountries, since goods produced by unskilled labour in the developedcountries were facing competition from those in developing countries,given the scarcity of unskilled labour in the former. Therefore, free marketand competition enhanced technological progress and hence high-qualitysustained growth in those countries (Michalopoulos 1987: 24).

From the mid-1980s the World Bank produced a number of studieson education in Africa (World Bank 1985, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1990b, 1991;Kelly 1991). These studies called for a drastic reduction of higher educa-tion in Africa, as it had developed in the post-independence period. Thecall was made on the pretext of promoting higher efficiency and a moreegalitarian distribution of resources. These studies claimed that socialreturn to investment on primary education was 28 per cent, while that


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of tertiary education was only 13 per cent. They further pointed out thatthe social return to public investment in higher education was 13 per cent,while the return to private investment in higher education was 32 per cent.These studies concluded that individual university graduates receivedabout two-and-a-half times more increased income over outlay than thegovernment; and they received from the government 34 times more thanwas received by primary-level students. Accordingly, education finan-cing was unbalanced and investment in higher education was ineffi-cient: ‘Wastage, proliferation of small institutions, excessively large(especially non-teaching) staff and the nearly universal policy of charg-ing no fees all contribute to high costs’ (Kelly 1991: 7).

As far as these studies were concerned, this amounted to a veryinegalitarian distribution of education expenditure. These studies claimedthat 40 per cent of university students came from white-collar families(professionals, government and corporate employees); and at the sametime, professionals represented only 6 per cent of the population, butappropriated about 27 per cent of the education expenditure. Rather thanalleviate poverty, it was claimed that public expenditure in higher educa-tion was compounding the problems. This was a time when many donoragencies had shifted their support to projects promising short-term pay-offs, which were mostly administered by non-governmental organiza-tions (NGOs), whose success did not depend on high-level skills, such astechnical skills or PhDs. It was this approach that reinforced the shift awayfrom higher education as a development priority (Doss et al. 2004: 2).

African workers were destined for a long time to remain unskilledworkers, according to the World Bank’s first African specific educationpolicy paper (World Bank 1988). Within this context, Africa’s growthdepended on channelling resources to primary, tertiary and vocationaleducation, since the need for university education to fill the few white-collar jobs could be met by overseas education institutions. The mainthrust of this policy was that higher education was too expensive, and itmainly favoured better-off population groups at the expense of second-ary and tertiary education. The World Bank called for a restructuring ofhigher education, so that there could be a public cost recovery and real-location of government spending towards levels with highest socialreturns. This, accordingly, would promote higher efficiency and egali-tarian distribution of education resources.

Higher education institutions, accordingly, were made to operate at thelowest possible public cost, and to exist by virtue of their being ‘viable’(producing for the market and paying for themselves) and ‘efficient’(revising their syllabuses to suit the ‘products’ for the market). Universities


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had to design ‘programmes or centres of excellence’, mainly impartingskills as per market demands to replace the ‘traditional’ university sys-tems. The introduction of cost-sharing was part of this package, sinceincreasingly there was a plethora of private research and learning institu-tions emerging, which made the old system of financing higher educationsuperfluous. The multiple changes in the economy, culture and commu-nication under globalization, had effects on the education systems in that,increasingly, there was greater flexibility in production design to meetdiverse global consumer needs obtained by using new computer-led tech-nologies and employing a more educated labour force in more participa-tory forms of work organization. This had led to increased demands for amulti-skilled labour force – ‘smart’ workers, given the introduction of newtechnologies and continuous deployment of new knowledge.

This position claimed that the world had entered a new stage – the‘knowledge society’ – a stage in which productivity had increasinglybecome dependent on knowledge as a form of symbolic capital. Sincehigher learning institutions were habitats of ‘specialized knowledge’,they were supposed to play a central role in this process. Higher learninginstitutions were supposed to produce skilled professionals and know-ledge workers who could compete internationally. Disciplinary depthand ‘purity’ were no longer necessary, since, like other public services,higher education was increasingly being drawn into the world market.Students were becoming consumers, free to choose the best courses, andthere was big money to be made by private firms: education had becomea commodity.

In countries such as the United States education was increasingly becom-ing a commodity for sale and learning companies were being quoted onthe stock exchange. Accordingly, the Organization for Economic Co-oper-ation and Development (OECD) member countries’ income from for-eign students topped US$30 billion in 1999. Even the World TradeOrganization (WTO) turned to this sector: since 1994 the General Agree-ment on Trade in Services (GATS) has included education, and, in par-ticular, higher education, on the list of services to be privatized. Thenegotiations, within the WTO, on facilitating the flow of students andeducational resources, and establishing colleges and campuses in foreigncountries were planned to be completed by 2005.

Thus, it was claimed, owing to the numerous development projectscompeting for government funds and the cuts in spending in highereducation, the existing universities had no capacity to cater for the thou-sands of candidates qualified for university education. Moreover, theseuniversities lacked the basic infrastructure for teaching, learning, research


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and administration activities and their members of staff had becomedemoralized, there were frequent closures of the public universities due tostrikes and student unrest which disrupted academic programmes; all thesefactors had led to poor academic quality. Since the infrastructure of thepublic institutions had been run-down, lecturers were badly paid, andgovernments could no longer provide scholarships or guarantee employ-ment; governments could no longer be the purveyors of higher education.

Within this context, higher education institutions no longer had amonopoly of the transmission of knowledge and research, which wereincreasingly becoming diversified, with higher education institutionsbeing only one of many organizations competing for the education/training and markets. It was necessary for the higher learning institutionsto transform, if they were not to be marginalized. Part of the transform-ation entailed the development of a wide range of partnerships with organ-izations in the private and public sectors. Therefore, what was requiredwas increased responsiveness in mass higher education systems and a shiftfrom closed to open intellectual systems in the academic arena.

Accordingly, closed knowledge systems managed only by canonicalnorms and collegial authority were no longer tenable, since what wasrequired was increased enrolment and provision of programmes thatemphasized the development of professional competence in the work-place. From the generation and dissemination of knowledge, these institu-tions were supposed to change, so that they provided learning programmesthat led to the award of qualifications. It was necessary to even delimit theboundary between higher education and other forms of post-compulsoryeducation, through provision of transdisciplinary and multidisciplinarybroad-based programmes, rather than the focused units or courses.

Without going into details, what this amounted to was a declarationthat it is no longer the novelty of knowledge which matters, but whatwas characterized as a new type of knower – a consumer of knowledge inthe market. It was claimed that there is increasingly a fusing of economicsand technology taking place in the world, which has belittled humanexperience. The new type of a knower has overthrown the principle ofthe age-old tradition of the training of minds. Therefore, the relationshipbetween the supplier of knowledge and the user has increasingly becomethat of the commodity producers and the consumers. Knowledge hadceased to be an end in itself.

It was the flourishing of private universities which could deal withthe problems that plagued the public ones, since these could deal withthe problem of who pays for education, respond to the global dictatesof privatization, the free market economy, the individual ownership of


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establishments, and the provision of specialized education programmesgeared towards self-employment. Members of the wealthy classes whoseconsolidation had taken place during SAPs gave credence to this pos-ition: in addition to sending their children abroad, they were pressurizingfor the provision of education for their children similar to that providedin the universities in the North.

It was in this context that East African countries began to witness theproliferation of private universities from the late 1980s. Thus, there were13 universities in Tanzania by 2004 (five public and the rest private);15 universities in Kenya (seven public and the rest private); and nine uni-versities in Uganda (three public and the rest private). Their appearancewas accompanied by three other related processes in the public universi-ties – namely, the aggressive expanded enrolment of students throughthe admission of privately sponsored students and parallel programmesand evening classes, restructuring of programmes so as to respond to theprivate and public interests, and introduction of income-generating proj-ects through investments in entrepreneurial activities.

The admission of fee-paying students resulted in the growth of totalstudent admissions from 3,361 in 1993 to 14,239 by 1999 in MakerereUniversity, with the number of government-sponsored students more orless stagnating at around 2000. As a result, student total enrolment rosefrom 7,344 in 1993 to 25,000 by 2000 and more than 35,000 by 2003, ofwhich only 25 per cent were government-sponsored. Similarly, enrol-ment in Kenyan public universities, which stood at 41,000 students, wasto rise to 60,000 students by the same year. In the case of Tanzania, itwas at the UDSM that the rapid increase in student enrolment tookplace. At UDSM, student enrolment increased from 2,898 in 1995 to8,411 in 2002. In 2003/4 and 2004/5, student enrolment rose to 12,563and 15,525, respectively – over 70 per cent of the student enrolment inpublic universities. Meanwhile, despite their numerical dominance, thetotal enrolment in private universities stood at 1,779 and 1,931 studentsin 2002 and 2003, respectively. In the case of Uganda and Kenya, most ofthe private students were registered in the parallel programmes – thosethat were taken as evening classes by people in work; while in Tanzania,it was simply a matter of enlarged enrolments in the same programmes.

The increase in the number of paying students was undertaken as a formof income generation. Some universities went further to establish units/directorates and even limited companies charged with creating and man-aging income-generation activities. The UDSM established the IncomeGenerating Unit (IGU, transformed to Directorate of Investments andResources Mobilization (DIRM) in 2004) and the University Consultancy


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Bureau, besides other small units within faculties that were charged withthe same tasks. The University of Nairobi established the University ofNairobi Enterprises and Services Ltd. (UNES). Their main task was to engagein business activities and commercialize resources – including humanresources and intellectual services. In the case of UDSM the DIRM has overthe years worked hard to attract investors to invest in the university landsand properties and also privatize the provision of some activities.

Fundamentally, the emergence of the private institutions did not alterthe situation as far as the quality of education was concerned, since theywere unable to attract enough academics and were, in most cases, ill-equipped. Moreover, their total student enrolment figures remainedinsignificant, compared to the importance accorded to them. In someinstances, they had become the source of the brain drain from the pub-lic universities. The overall impact of privatization of higher learninginstitutions has been the devaluation of education by sacrificing aca-demic standards, whereby, in the case of Nairobi and Makerere, studentswith lower entrance requirements are admitted in competitive fields inparallel programmes, so long as they can pay. Moreover, universities havebeen compelled to introduce irrelevant degree programmes, includingthose that are supposed to be provided by polytechnics, simply in orderto generate finances. There has also been introduction of an inflexiblecurriculum that is not necessarily relevant to the local needs and insuf-ficient funds for research and knowledge creation.

Generally, the production of ‘marketable goods’ – works, courses andgraduates – is given priority over academic excellence, and academic excel-lence is defined in the narrow terms of policy makers as the marketabilityof the courses and of ‘outputs’ – graduates. The language has changed: stu-dents have been redefined as ‘consumers’ and universities have become‘providers’. The officials and administrators use the language of ‘inputs’,‘outputs’ and ‘throughputs’ in the education system. Over the past fewyears, the universities have embarked on institutional transformation pro-grammes by the introduction of ‘programmes of excellence’ – those thataim at multidisciplinarity and respond to job markets, modularization,semesterization and the creation of college campuses. Moreover, from theformerly public set-up, they have been evolving into a corporate set-up.

The expansion of enrolment has been taking place without an attend-ant expansion in infrastructure, educational facilities and teaching staff.The thousands of students being admitted now have to use the samefacilities that were designed for fewer students. High student–lecture ratioshave become the norm, in addition to the fact that there is a scarcity ofwell-trained academic and managerial staff. It is a common feature of


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most public universities to find students not attending lectures, since theclasses are too large, or standing outside the lecture halls because of a lackof seating. Seminars/tutorials are rarely conducted or have been scrappedin some of the institutions and libraries do not have enough publicationsto serve the enlarged number of students. At Makerere University, forexample, the library was designed to seat around 800 people, but thetotal enrolment of the university is over 35,000 students. Therefore, inmost cases students have become entirely dependent on the lecturenotes which are sometimes given to them. In sum, the problems thatplagued the public universities in the past have been aggravated tenfold.

It is for this reason that the number of students going to study abroadhas been increasing, in spite of all the changes that have been intro-duced. It is reported that in the 2001–02 academic year, 7,097 Kenyanswere reported to be enrolled in American colleges or universities. Thiswas a 14 per cent increase over the previous year, making Kenya theAfrican country that sends the largest number of students to US institutionsof higher learning. The number of Tanzanians and Ugandans going abroadalso increased during this period. In the case of the former, the increase wasby 19 per cent, to a total of 1,814 students, while the number of Ugandansrose by 7 per cent, to a total of 805. Of the nearly 600,000 students fromother countries studying in the United States, Africans accounted foraround 10 per cent. The number of those in European countries was alsoon the rise over the years (The East African 8–14 September 2003).

In sum, the recent developments in the expansion of education – whichresults from the expansion in the enrolment of fee-paying students –rather than dealing with the problems facing these countries as far as thequestion of human resources is concerned, are resulting in lower stand-ards of education, the unequal provision of education and the provisionof education which is not responding to the developmental needs of thecountries in question. Transformations in higher education have gener-ally affected the quality of education and the type of skills and knowledgebeing imparted. In this regard, the number of trained people has declined,despite the increase in enrolment. There are more and more graduatesbecoming unemployed because they received inadequate training or edu-cation which is not directly relevant to the social and economic needs ofthe country in question, while simultaneously the inflow of ‘expatriates’is on the increase, given the reliance on donors.

3.5 Some concluding remarks

It seems to me that the challenges for Africa, as far as education and labourmarket policies in Africa and East Africa specifically are concerned, are


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quite daunting. The fact is that the policies that have been pursued inthe past 30 years or so have resulted in the destruction of the capacitiesof the African countries to develop autonomously. If anything, they haveled to an increased dependence. Public and social policies have experi-enced a downward spiral, and this, in turn, has led to a deterioration ofbasic management systems and an inability to meet the adequate remu-neration levels for professionals and skilled workers. The problems thathave followed from this are widespread and severe. They have led to thefailure of the state and the civil service in general to play the develop-mental and welfare roles.

The problem in these countries is not unemployment as such, but theabsence of policies that would guarantee growth and the fact that thevery crucial element in that growth – human capital – has been margin-alized over the years. The policies adopted over the past three decadeshave been based on short-term attempts to solve fiscal problems ratherthan long-term development objectives, as in the past. Leaving labourmarket policies to donors and the market, rather than allowing a self-regulatory market to emerge, has resulted in the development of dis-torted markets. Questions of efficacy of a state that is not playing a rolein planning have become of paramount importance, especially in viewof the recognition of the fact that the state has a vital role to play in allspheres of the development and management of any society. Even themarket fundamentalists have recognized the fact that behind the hid-den hand of the market, there is always a fist – the state.

Development students of the 1960s who were concerned with issuesof poverty believed that the state was supposed to play a central role inthe planning and development of any country. The only problem is thatthey never thought it was possible to develop with a state which is demo-cratic and inclusive. The recent push towards democracy in most Africancountries has demonstrated that development and democracy are com-patible. Moreover, with the renewal of the assault on poverty, it is clear thatwithout social policies that aim to tackle the basic problems of unem-ployment, health, education and social delivery in general, developmentas such will remain an elusive dream.

As the exposition above has shown, with social policies that aimed atprovision of education and health, it was possible for development (evenif measured in GDP) to take place. Investment in education meant thecreation of jobs, just as investment in housing presupposed the growth ofthe construction industry. In other words, investments in social provi-sioning are in reality a motor of general economic growth. As shownabove, a lack of investment in social provisioning as far as African andEast African countries in particular are concerned, has meant a loss of


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material wealth. Wealth for investments in social services is usuallyaccrued from taxation. The states in Africa need to be vigilant in collec-tion of taxes, and in this way, they can be in a position to plan.

Beyond the need to reconsider social policy issues, African countriesneed to critically interrogate globalization’s effects and search for alter-native visions and values – in terms of a global order that is truly equit-able and humane, rather than the current one based on inequality andthe transfer of resources from poor regions to rich ones. They need tochampion a globalization of social justice and social democracy, whichputs at the forefront the question of sustainable development. Thus,even the education systems that should be formulated have to respondto those humane demands of the lot of the people in Africa. There is aneed to rethink the educational systems that respond not only to themarkets, but also to the cultural and social needs of people: these aresuch as freedom of expression, democracy, equity, responsibilities, rightsand obligations. These can only be supported and preserved through thestudy of art, music, literature, philosophy and culture – disciplines thatgo beyond the question of simple imparting of skills. A nation and itspeople rest on the bedrock of an education system that is fulfilling eco-nomic, social, political and cultural needs; these aspects are in the finalanalysis mutually supporting.

Notes

1 Formerly Tanganyika, until April 1964, when it united with Zanzibar. The lat-ter became independent in December 1963, but its revolution took place inJanuary 1964.

2 The World Bank (1991a) stated that ‘A real gap is being inadequately filled:capacity in economic and policy analysis and development management.Despite the achievements in education and training in Africa during the past30 years, most countries still do not have a critical mass of top policy analystsand managers who can help pilot their economies through the storms andturbulence that must be faced daily.’

3 Formerly the East African Common Market and the East African CommonServices established in 1948, with headquarters in Nairobi.

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4Education, Employment andDevelopment in Southern Africa:The Role of Social Policy inBotswana, South Africa andZimbabweFred T. Hendricks

4.1 Introduction

This chapter follows a funnel-like approach to the vexed questions of socialpolicy, education, employment and development in Southern Africa.Starting with broad conceptual questions, the chapter ends with coun-try case studies on the experience of implementing various policies oneducation in relation to the labour market. The chapter is divided intothree sections. It starts with a conceptual discussion of the role of socialpolicy in the development process by assessing the impact of public expen-diture on the creation of livelihoods, on the possibilities for enhancinglong-term legitimacy and, most importantly, on the process of eco-nomic growth itself. It highlights the emergence of a new broadside indevelopment thinking that seeks to shake social policy loose from itssocial work and remedial moorings and to anchor it instead to a centralrole in the development process. Seen from this perspective, social pol-icy is not merely a compensatory measure designed to deal with the fail-ures of the market by distributing welfare, but, rather, a defining featureof the development itself because of its impact on the extent of socialdifferentiation and inequality.

The second section provides a brief overview of public expenditure oneducation as social policy. The section places the conceptual discussionon the role of social policy in the process of development within an insti-tutional framework by introducing the World Bank’s structural adjustmentpropositions and discussing the opposing views. The role of educationin development lies at the heart of debates around the nature and role of the state in the economy. The adjustment agenda of the World Bank

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proposed to limit state expenditure on education with disastrous conse-quences on the standards of living of the people. This stands in direct con-trast to the development agenda of the United Nations Research Institutefor Social Development (UNRISD) and other United Nations agencies thathighlight the limitations of the market in dealing with inequalities anddevelopment.

Three country case studies are provided in the third section of the chap-ter. The special experience of Botswana in rejecting the assistance of theWorld Bank is counterposed with South Africa’s home-grown version ofadjustment and Zimbabwe’s convoluted post-colonial educational his-tory. The case studies provide evidence of the difficulties involved inlinking policies to practice. Notwithstanding a mountain of paperworkon policy, the development problems of poverty, unemployment andilliteracy remain scourges on the Southern African social landscape. It isclear that policies alone are not enough to make a dent in these durableproblems.

4.2 Agendas in development thinking: what role forsocial policy?

The normative argument that social policy in expanding livelihoods maycontribute to economic development rather than act as a brake on it ina trade-off between equity and efficiency is subjected to critical scrutinyin this section of the chapter. According to Mkandawire (2001: 3), forexample, one of the factors in the revival in interest in social policy isthe notion that social equity can be regarded as both a means for thepromotion of growth as well as an end in itself. Following the work ofMyrdal, he argues that social expenditure should not be viewed asmerely public consumption and therefore inimical to growth but shouldbe viewed, rather, as an intrinsic component of development. More specif-ically, Mkandawire (2001: 4) argues that ‘no automatic mechanism existsto translate growth into an expansion of human choice: the link betweeneconomic growth and human welfare has to be created consciously . . .social policies that enhance education and health must also create con-ditions that harness these capacities for growth and ensure that growthin turn addresses issues of equity and poverty’. This position is com-pellingly captured in the metaphor of ‘visible hands taking responsibilityfor social development’. The argument rests on the assertion that, ‘(F)aithin the ability of unregulated markets to provide the best possible environ-ment for human development has gone too far. Too great a reliance on the“invisible hand” of the market is pushing the world towards unsustainable

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levels of inequality and deprivation. A new balance between public and pri-vate interests must be found’ (UNRISD 2000: vii).

The problem, of course, is how this is to be achieved and how it will actu-ally happen in practice. There is clearly a necessity for conscious stateintervention that drives the development process and solves social prob-lems. However, there is a certain circularity in the reasoning on the rela-tionship between growth and equity embedded in a self-fulfilling virtuouscircle which somehow exists outside the critical decisions about budget-ary priorities and policy implementation. This chapter will try to under-stand how exactly proponents of a marriage between social policy andeconomic development see it contributing to growth in practical terms.On the basis of my impressions of the literature, there also seems to be ablithe acceptance that social policy will necessarily translate into prac-tice. If one looks at policy only – without considering its link to practiceand implementation – the impression created is very skewed. It is as if theintentions of policy are conflated with their consequences. The problemhowever, is almost invariably that the policies are often not implementedas initially envisaged.

There is a huge gulf between stated policy and the practice of imple-mentation, between the initial intentions of policy and the manner inwhich these find expression in reality. In tracing the trajectory of socialpolicy, it is thus also necessary to shift focus between a wide variety ofpotential and actual paths of policy. It is crucial that research on policyshould cover a host of related problems. It must attempt to establish: (i) how policies have been put into effect; (ii) how the intended benefi-ciaries have responded; (iii) how they may have participated in the for-mulation of the policy in the first instance; (iv) under what constraintsthe design of policy and the formulation of plans have operated; and(v) what obstacles have stood in the way of implementation.

In this regard, for example, it will be important to establish the linkagebetween the policy and its budgetary allocation, since this reveals thepriorities of a state in much clearer terms. It will also be instructive toascertain exactly how the budget was utilized and what constraints existat this level of implementation. The emphasis on social policy is vital, butthe question of practice is even more critical to the development prospectsof the South.

The really crucial question that needs to be asked is whether the growthprocess on its own can resolve problems of poverty. It seems quite clearthat the benefits of growth do not necessarily trickle down to the down-trodden, especially in situations of extreme inequality, as, for example, inSouth Africa. In fact, the initial income distribution always determines

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just how quickly growth may reduce poverty. According to Lustig (2002: 4),‘(I)n societies with more unequal distributions the same growth rate makesfar less of a dent in poverty.’ On the other hand, what can be done in theabsence of growth? In a considered response, Ravi Kanbur (2000) describesthe disagreement between those that emphasize growth and those thatcrusade the cause of equity as a red herring. He suggests instead that theoverwhelming rhetoric in the discourse on development conceals thereal agreements between these two groupings.1 His arguments are anattempt to move away from the caricatures towards a more serious appre-ciation of the complex relation between economic policy, efforts atredistribution and prospects for economic growth. His contention isinformed by the recognition that in conditions where the evidence is notunambiguous, adopting hard positions is not especially helpful. As if toprovide the evidence sought by Kanbur, a research initiative on The Effectsof Inequality on Economic Performance championed by Pranab Bardhanand Samuel Bowles (1998) goes some way towards demonstrating thenegative impact of inequality upon economic growth. Based on a diverseset of contexts they conclude, ‘(T)he first, and most important, themeemerging from this research is the increasingly confident answer that wemay give to our basic question: There seems little doubt that in a widerange of cases inequality is an obstacle to economic performance, thatthese cases appear to be empirically important, and that some of them maybe susceptible to policy interventions to jointly achieve objectives longthought by economists to be contradictory, namely, efficiency and equity’(Bardhan and Bowles 1998: 7).

If these conditions are accepted it follows that social transfers from thestate to the citizenry are crucial not only to preserve or to engender adecent level of living, reduce poverty and ensure the long-term legiti-macy of the state but also to contribute to economic growth rates. It seemsquite obvious that if inequality is really so very bad for economic growththen it should be reduced and social policy clearly has a central role toplay in contributing towards equity.

UNRISD (2000: 12) has been at the forefront of developing a develop-ment agenda which appreciates that ‘markets are social and political insti-tutions, composed of people with varying degrees of power and influence’.They are not natural occurrences beyond the reach of human interven-tion. Indeed, Chang (2002: 17), following Karl Polanyi, argues that, ‘theemergence of markets was almost always deliberately engineered by thestate, especially in the early stage of capitalist development’. In line withthis position, UNRISD (2000: 13) asserts that ‘(T)oo much confidence inthe rationality of the “invisible hand” has been matched by too little


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understanding of the necessary relation between public policy and themarket. Efficient markets require the contributions of a well-run publicsector. They require a healthy, well-educated and well-informed popula-tion. And they require the social stability that grows out of democraticgovernance and an acceptable level of public provision.’ On the basis ofa wide-ranging study on poverty, income distribution and well-being inAsia, Montes (2002: 8) takes this argument further by providing the con-troversial conclusion that, ‘(A)ctive social protection policies that addressissues of health, education, safety and security of the general populationare necessary to sustain efforts at dismantling state planning in order toexpand markets’.

Taken together, this amounts to the emergence of a new broadside indevelopment thought. Driven principally by the United Nations agencies(the United Nations Development Programme/UNDP and UNRISD), thisperspective asserts the intrinsic role of social policy in the developmentprocess. In so doing, the approach seeks to shake social policy loose fromits moorings to the remedial action associated with the discipline of socialwork. Instead, it proposes that social policy should encompass a fully-fledged developmental and redistribution agenda. It should not merely bequarantined into the passive role of compensatory measures to deal withthe deficiencies of the market in distributing welfare. In this respect, socialpolicy is not seen as a trade-off with development. In fact, Mkandawire(2001: 19) argues that ‘states . . . have had to be concerned with reconcil-ing the exigencies of accumulation with those of legitimacy and nationalcohesion. Consequently, the pursuit of social policies that enhance accumu-lation while securing the state the necessary legitimacy for political stabil-ity has constituted the cornerstone of developmental management.’ Stewartet al. (2000) provide empirical substantiation for this position in their over-all argument that those countries with strong social policies on educa-tion, health and equity tend to have higher rates of economic growth inthe long run. In concert with this broadside, Vartiainen (2002: 5) concludes,‘(I)t is clear that some economic functions such as education, health careand the provision of infra-structure and a legal framework are better notleft to private entrepreneurship.’ From this perspective, the privatization ofessential services is an inappropriate strategy.

By contrast, the role of the state is asserted as a central player in eco-nomic policy and development. Elson’s (2002: 10) attempt to integratethe economic and the social is indicative of this inclination,

(P)rivatisation bias may appear to be sound economics if we ignorenon-market costs and benefits. But the excessive reduction in public

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provision that it implies is a false economy. Of course, it is importantto avoid excessive public debt and waste of public money. But in judg-ing what is excessive and what is waste, we have to look at non-marketprocesses that create and sustain human beings and communities.A strong and effective public sector is vital to mediate between the mar-ket pressure to treat people as mere inputs into a production processand the aspiration to live life in a fully human way.

In many ways, this falls squarely into the notion of de-commodificationdefined as ‘ . . . the degree to which welfare states weaken the cash nexusby granting entitlements independent of market participation’ (Esping-Andersen 2000: 43). The debate is about how to manage public goodsand services on behalf of and in favour of the people in such a mannerthat it enhances both economic growth as well as social inclusivity.

This broadside provides a frontal and sustained attack on the conven-tional wisdom of the trickle-down effect of economic benefits. In thesub-Saharan African (SSA) context, this conventional position is articulatedmost clearly by von Braun (1991) who asserts that economic growth mustprecede the provision of social security. While this may appeal to thecommonsense notion that the economic cake must be available prior tothe distribution of social benefits to the population, this simple unilinearapproach does not allow for a nuanced appreciation of the manner inwhich social expenditure may reinforce prospects for economic growth.The problem is not merely one of sequencing, of what comes first, deliv-ery or development. Rather, it concerns how development itself is con-ceived in relation to the principles of freedom, equality and democracy.

Analytically, these arguments revolve around the nature of the relation-ship between the social, the economic and the political. These should, ofcourse, not be seen as discrete entities but, rather, should emphasize aholistic and dynamic two-way causal relationship.

4.3 Education as social policy in Southern Africa

Adjustment and its critics

This section comprises a detailed discussion of the overall experiences ofBotswana in rejecting the International Monetary Fund (IMF), of SouthAfrica in imposing its own version of the Economic Structural AdjustmentProgramme (ESAP) in the shape of Growth, Employment and Redistribu-tion (GEAR), and of Zimbabwe where ESAPs were applied with disastrousresults. It hopes to compare and contrast the economic performances ofthese countries and then relates this to the impact of ESAP on social


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policies – and, in particular, on education. It outlines the stated goals ofESAP and then measures the extent to which these have been accom-plished in Zimbabwe, and compares similar outcomes in South Africa andBotswana. It also tries to examine the particular experiences of Botswanaand South Africa to demonstrate the variations in responses to the WorldBank and the IMF over the last decade. Since the bases of ESAPs revolvearound questions of fiscal discipline it necessarily translates into reduc-tions in government social expenditure and, by simple deduction, thishas a deleterious effect on social policy.

The debate on social policy is rooted in different conceptualizationsabout the role of the state in development. State expenditure on educa-tion has been at the heart of this debate. While it is universally acceptedthat education plays a central role in development, the particular man-ner in which it should be provided has been the subject of intensediscussion – pitting civil society groups against ministries of finance(Kanbur 2000: 3).

In many ways, this debate is epitomized by the ongoing quarrel betweenJoseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, and the IMF, WorldBank and the United States (US) Treasury Department. Civil society groupshave been quick to latch onto the stinging critiques from Stiglitz, whowas the chief economist at the World Bank between 1997 and 1999, butwho subsequently became a foremost critic of the Bank’s policies. This doesnot mean, of course, that he has become the champion of the downtrod-den, but merely that his critiques of these international financial insti-tutions (IFIs) coincide with the interests of civil society groups in the South.

Stiglitz (2001) provides the following damning narrative on the role ofthe IMF:

Well think of yourself now as a poor African country and some com-pany in your country has borrowed 100 million dollars from a US bank,and they have to pay 18–20 per cent interest, which is not unusual.So what does the government have to do – it has to put 100 milliondollars in reserves. 100 million dollars that could be spent to buildschools, to build clinics, to do lots of other things. Ask the question,when countries hold reserves how do they hold reserves typically?Most countries hold reserves in the form of US Treasury Bills. What doesthat mean, that this poor African country is doing, when it holds UST-Bills? It’s lending money to the US government, to the United States.What interest is it getting from the United States? About 4%. So youcan now understand why the US Treasury was very enthusiastic aboutcapital market liberalisation. The US loans at 18% and borrows at 4%.


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It is good for US economic growth but remember what we are sup-posed to be talking about is economic growth in developing countries.How is this supposed to be good for economic growth in developingcountries? The evidence is that it is not. So the point is not only thesubstance but also the process. The IMF tried to have its Charterchanged without a single piece of concrete evidence that it was goingto be good and with enormous amount of evidence that it was going tobe bad. And when you see something like that happen you say some-thing is wrong with the system.

The retort from the IMF and the World Bank has been equally spirited,but recently there has been an acknowledgement that developing coun-tries which follow policies preferred by the IMF may suffer ‘a collapse ingrowth rates and significant financial crises’ (Prasad et al. 2003). Stiglitzadvances a sophisticated Keynesian approach to economic developmentin the South. His argument is that the IMF and the World Bank havemoved away decisively from distribution issues such as unemployment,health and education. The implications and reality of their position arethat they are not merely ignoring inequality, but are actively engaged inincreasing it. In contrast to this, issues of redistribution lie at the heartof social policy as they counter the effects of a strictly market-based allo-cation of resources and contribute towards equality and the resolutionof the problem of poverty. Providing an impressive dossier of evidence,Mkandawire, citing Dollar and Kraay (2002: 118), agrees: ‘(A)lthoughSAPs [Structural Adjustment Programmes] have yet to show much aboutdevelopment, the BWI [Bretton Woods institutions] stridently assert thatnot only do their policies lead to high growth rates but also that “growthis good for the poor”’.

The World Bank published its adjustment agenda for education policyin SSA in 1988 (World Bank 1988). It outlines the remarkable advancesmade in African education during the independence period. However, itproposes to limit the level of state expenditure on education generallyand suggests a reorientation away from the tertiary sector towards pri-mary education as the foundation for further schooling. The Committeefor Academic Freedom in Africa (1992: 51) offered a stinging critique ofthis change in emphasis, insisting that,

. . .the World Bank’s attempt to cut higher education stems from itsbleak view of Africa’s economic future, and its belief that African work-ers are destined for a long time to remain unskilled labourers. Thiswould explain why the World Bank has made the shrinking of Africa’s


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higher education institutions the centrepiece of its policy and has iden-tified the improvement of academic life with its reduction.

The report further stated the position of the Bank on the role of educa-tion in development in the following terms, ‘Education cannot, in itself,bring about economic growth, but the evidence indicates it to be a vitalfactor. It provides the fertile ground without which other developmentinitiatives will not take root. Education accelerates the growth process; itis an essential complement to other factors’ (World Bank 1988: 21).

While the neoliberalism of the World Bank and IMF dictated theirinsistence on cutting the public sector, their intervention in Africa waspremised on a particular characterization of the role of the state on thecontinent. The neoliberal inclination of a lean state combined very wellwith the conceptualization of the African state as rapacious, corrupt andself-serving. In the distorted logic of this position it followed that less ofthis defective creature would be good for development. The baby wasbeing thrown out with the bathwater. Since adjustment has been suchan unmitigated failure, the World Bank has more recently attempted torescue the essentials of the programme by modifying some of the detailswithout abandoning it completely. There are, for example, instances wherethe Bank spent more on the public sector than on adjustment projectsper se (Englebert 2000: 179–80).

It is important to clarify the terminology used by the World Bank andthe IMF. How does structural adjustment actually differ from stabilization?Does sectoral adjustment compound external influence and underminelocal autonomy? While adjustment may imply minor modifications tothe economy, in fact, in many cases, it has meant a fundamental economicreorganization (Samoff 2000: 86). The World Bank’s (1988: 94–100) planrevolves around a three-pronged strategy – namely, adjustment, revitaliza-tion and selective expansion. Adjustment implies various measures toreduce state expenditure on education, revitalization means improving thequality of education and raising academic standards, and selective expan-sion is premised upon successful completion of the first two strategies.Using this conceptual framework, this section will examine the various expe-riences of education as a basic aspect of social policy in Botswana, SouthAfrica and Zimbabwe.

There was and there remains now an abiding assumption that invest-ment in education would automatically translate into economic growthand democracy. Lipset (1981: 40), for example, concludes that ‘if we can-not say that a “high” level of education is a sufficient condition for democ-racy, the available evidence suggests that it comes close to being a necessary


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condition’. Post-colonial Africa is no exception. Education was regardedby many as an instrument for development and as means of undoing theinjustices and inequalities of the past. Flowing from an influential arti-cle by Theodore Schultz (1961) on investment in human capital as themotor force for development, the newly independent governments saweducation as a panacea for all of the ills of underdevelopment. However,insufficient attention was paid to the quality and relevance of this edu-cation to the production processes in a post-colonial environment. In theend, education at all costs does not necessarily translate into development.It may in fact lead to much greater problems if the economy is incapableof absorbing the newly-trained scholars and students. Thus, it is impor-tant not only to consider the impact of improving the education of thepopulation on economic growth, but also to look at it from the otherway around: how does economic growth affect education?

In a later article, Schultz (1980) argues that the industrialization ofEurope did not depend upon investment in the labour force. But his argu-ments are bound by the empirical experience of the poor in the UnitedStates of America. Applied in a mechanistic manner to post-colonial sit-uations in Africa, the argument distorts the actual dimensions of theproblems of poverty, underdevelopment and illiteracy. There are no sim-ple solutions nor quick fixes to these deep-rooted problems. Instead,they require an inclusive and holistic approach which links relevant edu-cational curricula to an unfolding process of economic development.Recognizing that economic growth may not happen even in situationsof increased schooling, the World Bank (1995: 198–203) has turned itsattention to private training providers instead of the state in a movewhich is supposed to improve the synergy between the needs of theeconomy and the aspirations of schoolgoers and students. Emphasizinga demand-driven approach, the World Bank has argued for the provisionof Technical and Vocational Education and Training. However, the highlevels of unemployment and the huge informal sector across Africa makethis an inappropriate strategy to tackle African realities. There is currentlytoo little demand for labour (semi-skilled or skilled) for these programmesto have a sustainable impact. It is far more important to emphasize theways in which technical education could interact with and, indeed, stim-ulate demand in order to ensure reasonable levels of growth. Since tech-nical and vocational schools and colleges lie at the intersection betweentraining and education and since they represent a vital link betweenteaching, learning and working, the following case studies provide someinsight and evidence on the successes and failures in Botswana, SouthAfrica and Zimbabwe.


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4.4 Southern African case studies

Botswana: model or myth?

Growth, education and poverty

Botswana has long been regarded as the model of democratic stability inAfrica. While this contrasts in very many ways with the turbulent his-tory of Zimbabwe, there are some striking parallels between the post-colonial experiences of the two countries, especially with respect toeducation. At independence, the provision of education was restrictedto a small proportion of the population and the post-colonial accom-plishments are very impressive indeed (see Table 4.1). Primary schoolenrolment rose steadily from 60,000 in 1965 to well over 300,000 in1995. Starting from the very low level of 1,300 secondary school enrol-ments in 1965, the figure grew significantly to over 100,000 by 1995. Therewere only 83 university students in 1965, by 1995 there were 5,500 andtoday there are about 8,000.

This unprecedented expansion did not come cheaply. State expend-iture on education doubled in the decade from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s (Colclough and McCarthy 1980: 212). The consequent upwardsocial mobility was a major characteristic of the early years of independ-ence. The colonial neglect of education had two further effects. Somemembers of the small elite managed to travel to South Africa for their edu-cation until the 1970s when the Apartheid regime prohibited blacks fromneighbouring countries from studying at schools in South Africa. Thelegacy of colonial neglect of education that translated into very low lev-els of school enrolment has also had the added consequence of Botswana’songoing dependence upon foreign skilled labour. This is despite Mazrui’s(1978: 197) notion that those groups who had close contact with the colo-nial agents represented privileged elites and had clear advantages in theirlife-chances over those who had no such contact.

The expansion of education in Botswana was facilitated in no smallmeasure by the stable political environment in the country. The Reportof the National Commission on Education published in 1977, entitledEducation for Kagisano (or education for social justice, social harmony, asense of belonging to the community and acceptance of responsibility).The report was accepted as official policy by the government. The terms ofreference of the Commission were threefold. It had to formulate the coun-try’s education philosophy, to set goals for the development of educationand training and it had to recommend appropriate strategies to realizethese goals. Flowing from the Commission’s report, this National Policyon Education (NPE) contained the following objectives for education: it

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Table 4.1 Botswana enrolment at all levels, 1990–1999

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999

First level – Primary schoolsMale 137,217 142,117 147,414 150,751 153,789 156,560 159,502 161,497 162,565 162,831Female 146,299 150,116 154,068 154,728 156,339 157,133 159,127 160,771 160,125 161,043Total 283,516 292,233 301,482 305,479 310,128 313,693 318,629 322,268 322,690 323,874% Female 51.6 51.4 51.1 50.7 50.4 50.1 49.9 49.9 49.6 49.7

Second level – Secondary schoolsMale 26,562 31,607 35,146 39,880 40,989 48,212 50,686 54,525 67,641 70,446Female 30,330 36,880 40,727 45,807 45,695 54,947 57,687 61,551 75,862 77,749Total 56,892 68,487 75,873 85,687 86,684 103,159 108,373 116,076 143,503 148,195% Female 53.3 53.8 53.7 53.5 52.7 53.3 53.2 53.0 52.9 52.5

Second level – Teacher training collegesMale 225 176 185 195 269 315 320 343 439 482Female 975 1,110 1,087 1,066 816 855 843 656 617 655Total 1,200 1,286 1,272 1,261 1,085 1,170 1,163 999 1,056 1,137% Female 81.3 86.3 85.5 84.5 75.2 73.1 72.5 65.7 58.4 57.6

Second level – Vocational and technical trainingMale 2,558 2,474 2,730 3,263 3,814 5,563 4,351 5,598 6,226 6,178Female 956 1,135 1,368 1,412 1,667 2,532 1,857 3,232 3,713 3,431Total 3,514 3,609 4,098 4,675 5,481 8,095 6,208 8,830 9,939 9,609% Female 27.2 31.4 33.4 30.2 30.4 31.3 29.9 36.6 37.4 35.7

(Continued)

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1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999

Third level – Colleges of educationMale — 469 551 769 615 552 568 548 557 543Female — 522 624 630 663 719 686 713 700 716Total — 991 1,175 1,399 1,278 1,271 1,254 1,261 1,257 1,259% Female — 52.7 53.1 45.0 51.9 56.6 54.7 56.5 55.7 56.9

Third level – University of Botswana*Male 1,884 1,962 2,030 2,238 2,828 2,609 3,812 4,128 4,525 5,011Female 1,481 1,605 1,946 2,228 2,228 2,892 3,485 3,879 4,073 4,584Total 3,365 3,567 3,976 4,466 5,056 5,501 7,297 8,007 8,598 9,595% Female 44.0 45.0 48.9 49.9 44.1 52.6 47.8 48.4 47.4 47.8

All levelsMale 168,446 178,805 188,056 197,096 202,304 213,811 219,239 226,639 241,953 245,491Female 180,041 191,368 199,820 205,871 207,408 219,078 223,685 230,802 245,090 248,178Total 348,487 370,173 387,876 402,967 409,712 432,889 442,924 457,441 487,043 493,669% Female 51.7 51.7 51.5 51.1 50.6 50.6 50.5 50.5 50.3 50.3

*Estimated sex split for 1990 and 1991.Source: www.cso.gov.bw/cso/tab-educ1.html.

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had to promote democracy, development, self-reliance, national unityand Kagisano.

In 1994, the government of Botswana reiterated its support for a rights-based approach to education in a national conference on Education forAll, held in 1991, and then in the Revised National Policy on Education(RNPE), adopted in 1994. There were three key areas of education policythat received attention – namely, improving access to primary educa-tion, enhancing the quality of education and introducing cost-savingmeasures by involving individuals, communities and the private sectorin education (UNESCO 2000a). The stated aim of the Revised NationalPolicy on Education was ‘to prepare Botswana for the transition from atraditional agro-based economy to the industrial economy that wouldbe able to compete with other countries of the world. In addition toresponding to the demands of the economy, the government of Botswanaconsiders access to basic education a fundamental human right’. By 1998more than 90 per cent of the children of schoolgoing age were attendingschool. There was, however a drop in primary school enrolment from 1999that has been difficult to explain. Perfunctory evidence suggests that itmay be related to the very high level of HIV/AIDS infection in the coun-try, but this has not been verified. There is, however, sufficient evidence onthe manner in which the high incidence of HIV/AIDS is affecting thehealth and mortality rates of the teaching staff (Bennell et al. 2001).

In practice, there appears to be a shift from the earlier rights-basedapproach to education as a programme of social justice engendered bysocial policy, viewing education as a value in and of itself, to a more instru-mentalist notion of how education could be put to use in the processesof economic growth and development. Botswana’s phenomenal successin the growth of per capita income, from about $50 in the mid-1960s toabout $1,000 in the early 1980s, suggests that there is real potential toabsorb the school leavers in gainful employment. However, the socialeffects of this spectacular economic growth are not well known (Parsons1990: 248). On the face of it, there is a growing elite with internationaleconomic connections through the export market, but similar advancesamong the poor have not been so easy to secure.

The shift from a rights-based approach to the instrumentalism andvocationally-based education has filtered through to all levels of govern-ment. The Ministry of Education in Botswana, in particular, has pilotedthis shift, clearly evidenced in its various activities and plans. For example,it has set up a Department of Student Placement and Welfare with theaim of facilitating ‘Tertiary Education and training by providing a sus-tainable and transparent financial support system. Through a caring and


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motivated staff, we will provide quality service for efficient developmentof human resource for the entire economy’ (Ministry of Education 2003).Officially, this was to be done in order to ensure that the Botswana maylead productive lives in response to the labour needs of the economy. In con-cert with this aim, the Ministry has also established a Department ofVocational Education and Training whose vision is ‘ . . . to have a com-petent, innovative and internationally competitive national humanresource with the ability to contribute to the socio-economic and tech-nological advancement of the country’ (Ministry of Education 2003).

The evidence on the outcomes of education investment in Botswanais mixed. The findings of a report compiled by Hagen, Nordas and Gergis(UNESCO 2000a) reveal that Botswana does not perform very well withregard to the relationship between per capita gross domestic product(GDP) and the level of educational attainment. In other words its level ofincome outstrips its educational level. The level of unemployment offi-cially stands at 20 per cent in Botswana. There are obviously a numberof reasons for the apparently low incentive to become educated as aroute to upward mobility. The many barriers to entry to the formal labourmarket, especially since the mines in South Africa have shed so manyjobs, and the low incentive to enter the informal economy suggest thateducation will have to follow rather than lead a recovery in the economicprospects of the country. The expected gains from education are notimpressive enough relative to what may be accomplished without it toensure that it is regarded as a value in itself.

This section has questioned why praise for the country’s economicperformance has not translated into a resolution of the endemic prob-lem of urban and rural poverty. While Botswana boasts high levels ofgrowth, the slums around Gaborone, the growing unemployment prob-lem and the destitution of many rural dwellers paint an entirely differ-ent story for the vast majority of the population (Selolwane 2002: 85–6).Income distribution in Botswana remains highly skewed, with a Ginicoefficient of .54 implying an excessive gap between the wealthy andthe poor. The benefits of high economic growth are clearly not equitablyshared in Botswana (Botswana Institute for Development PolicyAnalysis 1998).

South Africa: race, class and education

The limits and possibilities of democratic change

South Africa arrived very late on the scene of self-government. It was thelast country in Africa to shake off the shackles of colonial and Apartheidrule when the first democratic elections based on universal franchise were


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held in 1994. The problems of a post-Apartheid society have been verydifferent from those confronting Botswana and Zimbabwe, but there arealso important similarities. The racist division of the country, premised onits territorial segregation, permeated every aspect of life. Education wasvery severely affected by the material disparities of apartheid. The mostglaring statistic in this regard is the unit cost for schoolgoers. The gov-ernment spent 10 times as much on a white school child as on a blackchild. Blacks were effectively excluded from virtually all levels of educa-tion beyond the most basic schooling.

The legacy of Apartheid, especially in education, has weighed very heav-ily on the democratic government. Not only did the new government haveto merge 17 different departments of education inherited from the racistdivisions of the past, it is still confronted with very severe resource imbal-ances at different schools. For example, currently in the Eastern Capeprovince (one of the poorest provinces in the country) 90 per cent of pri-mary schools lack running water and electricity. Many also lack textbooksor the most basic secondary learning and teaching materials. In response tothe situation, the Nelson Mandela Foundation has embarked on a NationalRural Schools programme, not only to build schools where there are none,but also to ensure that the conditions for proper teaching and learningare developed and maintained. The programme provides access to librarybooks, computers and other learning materials while attempting to estab-lish a closer link between the community and the school.

The idea is that the community would develop a sense of ownershipover the school and, therefore, contribute towards its success and, simul-taneously, reduce the impact of poverty on the learning of poor children.In this respect, one of the greatest accomplishments has been the estab-lishment of school gardens and kitchens to produce food as supplemen-tary to the state school feeding schemes. Parents have been involved inboth the gardens and the kitchens all over South Africa. In fact, one of themost striking features of schools in poor areas, especially rural schools,is that they are far more likely to have kitchens (even those that do nothave boarders) than they are to have libraries.

Since these reflect the overall race divisions in the society at large, theinequalities have proven to be extremely durable. The new South Africangovernment tackled the problems with a euphoria and excitement accom-panying the accomplishment of the franchise and citizenship for the major-ity. While certainly well-meaning, there have been some real ambiguitiesin the policy which this section hopes to address. Essentially, the difficul-ties rest on the wide gap between the ideals of the democratic movementin the struggle against apartheid and the reality of implementing a com-plex education policy under conditions of severe resource and capacity


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constraints. Initially, with the Congress of South African Trade Unions(COSATU) at the forefront of debates and policy discussions about thenature of policy, there were serious attempts to break down the hugechasm between academic and vocational education. Emphasizing theimportance of recognizing prior learning (RPL) in the award of qualifi-cations, COSATU was instrumental in proposing that there should be onegovernment department for both education and labour. As COSATU’sinfluence in policy making has waned, so too have its initial proposalsfallen from the priority status they received at first.

This section does not examine the maze of education policies whichhave emerged in post-Apartheid South Africa. Instead, it concentrateson policies which relate to skills and how these tie up with humanresource development. In this respect, an investigation of the role andefficacy of the SETAs (Sector Education and Training Authorities) as wellas the National Skills Authority is unavoidable (Macun 2001: 173–4).

In 2001 the departments of Education and Labour in South Africalaunched a new Human Resource Development Strategy. Entitled ‘ANation at Work’, the policy represents a fundamental shift towards theinstrumentality of education in preparing students for employment ratherthan as a value in itself – apparently sharing the perspective of interna-tional trends that a ‘country’s ability to achieve economic growth (andtherefore maintain and increase employment) will depend on its humanrather than its natural resources’ (Young 2001: 73).

It is clear that these are factors enhancing the supply of an adequatelytrained workforce. It is not clear, however, whether this will contributeto the demand for more labour attendant with economic growth. Merelyeducating and training students for particular forms of employment doesnot in itself create jobs. The emphasis, at least in discourse, if not in prac-tice, has been on the development of skills that are directly appropriatefor the perceived needs and assumed demand in the labour market. It wassupposed to be a demand-led strategy for developing expertise. The SkillsDevelopment Act was passed in 1998 to provide the legislation necessaryfor the establishment of an institutional framework for skills develop-ment through the National Skills Authority, the Sector Education TrainingAuthorities and a new learnership system tied to the National Qualifica-tions Framework (Macun 2001: 170).

The task of the SETAs is to manage the learnership system (that is, a system of structured learning and practical work experience leading to aqualification recognized by the South African Qualifications Authorityfor particular sectors). The SETAs would be funded by a levy imposed onthose companies with an annual payroll exceeding R250,000. Framed by


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the Skills Development Levies Act of 1999, these employers have to paya monthly skills development levy of 0.5 per cent of their payroll to theSouth African Revenue Service which would disburse 80 per cent of thefund to the various SETAs and withhold 20 per cent for the specific purposeof training the unemployed at a national level (South African Instituteof Race Relations 2001: 285–6).

Despite these grand plans, major problems remain. According to recentfigures, about 71 per cent of the population above 20 years of age havenot completed secondary school (South African Government 2003: 20).This is clearly a major constraint on the development of any humanresource strategy since the basis for such policies must rely on the success-ful completion of school and high throughput rate to ensure a continuousflow of new arrivals ready for skills training.

The laudable aims of a joint initiative by the departments of Educationand Labour in the introduction of a single Human Resource DevelopmentStrategy lie awkwardly next to the major problems in implementation asthe institutional arrangements of the two departments do not allow foreffective intergovernmental cooperation. The National QualificationsFramework was supposed to marry education and training, but it remainsdogged with problems, especially now that the SETAs and the Departmentof Education dispute the legitimacy of various qualifications. To com-pound matters further, very little thought has gone into how these policieswill find expression in the provinces, where implementation is supposedto take place. Thus different departments with different capacities oper-ating in different provinces have together conspired to cause major prob-lems of implementation.

It may be too early to make an assessment, but it remains importantto ask whether this plan has worked to date. The Government’s Ten Yearreview of its policy implementation states very clearly that ‘general trendsseem to indicate that the positive effects of education have not yet madean impression on the labour market for youth’ (South African Government2003: 85). A large number of unskilled workers are unemployed and theSETAs have been very slow in getting off the ground and functioningaccording to plan. It is also too early to judge just how successful thelearnership schemes will be. In addition to the unemployed unskilledworkers, one of the clearest failures of the skills development is the increasein graduate (from tertiary institutions) unemployment – from 6 per centin 1995 to 15 per cent in 2002. This increase was even more marked forAfricans – from 10 per cent to 26 per cent in 2002 (South African Govern-ment 2003: 41). The Ten Year Review suggests two reasons for this wor-rying trend. Firstly, the schools, polytechnics and universities are not


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geared towards employability, and, secondly, there is insufficient careerguidance at schools (South African Government 2003: 41). While these may be important factors in explaining the high rate of graduateunemployment, they do not point to the structural problems in the econ-omy, particularly the low level of demand and, consequently, the limitedpossibilities to absorb these new graduates into the labour market.

Currently, there are three times as many enrolments at university asthere are in the Further Education and Training (FET) sector. But the grow-ing graduate unemployment and the lack of core technical skills linkedto the micro-enterprises suggest that there is a serious need to refocus theemphasis of education and training in favour of FET. At the moment, thereare virtually no bursaries or other forms of financial support for studentswishing to equip themselves realistically for gainful employment or self-employment.

Further Education and Training or vocational education and trainingis located in the very many public technical colleges in the country.These are in the process of being integrated on a regional basis, so thatthe divisions of the past may be substantively addressed. Simultaneously,it is hoped that the FET band will become aligned with the new HumanResources Development Strategy (Gewer 2001: 133).

The race and class divisions of Apartheid did not suddenly disappearwith the arrival of democracy in 1994. The inequalities have proven tobe incredibly durable. The following trends are discernible: In the formerModel C state schools previously reserved for whites only there has beena steady and considerable integration amongst the scholars while theteachers remain almost exclusively white. In the township schools, suchas all the schools in Soweto, there are no non-African scholars at all andonly a handful of non-African teachers. The policy of the Department ofEducation in respect of integrating the schools is to take a ‘soft zoning’approach. This implies that all schools must cater for the children in theareas surrounding the school before admitting children from elsewhere.The legacy of Apartheid, specifically the Group Areas Act, imposed sepa-rate residential areas for separate population groups as defined by theApartheid regime. So, in practice, a school in a previously whites-onlysuburb may turn away applicants if it can prove that it has no space capac-ity. There have been some horrific cases of racism at schools and manyof these are well-documented, but they still do not take account of theday-to-day difficulties of black children entering schools that were previ-ously reserved for whites only.

In June 2003, the constituencies of the National Economic Developmentand Labour Council (NEDLAC)2 agreed to a wide-ranging set of strategies


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for Growth and Development at a summit hosted by the government toaddress the crucial questions of poverty in South Africa. The constituen-cies included the following: government, organized labour, organizedbusiness and the community. The notion of social dialogue amongstthese constituencies in conversation on how to deal with the main chal-lenges facing the country was central to this important consensus-building exercise. The constituencies agreed on a shared vision to promoteeconomic growth, to encourage investments, to ensure job creation andpeople-centred development. In many ways this shared vision representsan attempt to unify the strong state-centred development proposed bylabour with the demands of a globalized economy as perceived by busi-ness and the government.

Since unemployment and poverty are so closely connected in SouthAfrica, one of the main aims of the summit was an agreement to halvethe number of people out of work by 2014. A major state-directed effortat public investment initiatives was designed to contribute to this object-ive through, for example, the construction of roads, railways, dams,schools, clinics, prisons, harbours (e.g. Coega) and electrification. Thiseffort is furthermore to be complemented by an expanded public worksprogramme to provide temporary relief for the unemployed. These pro-grammes include the following: school cleaning and renovating, com-munity gardens, erosion control and land rehabilitation, removal of alienvegetation, community irrigation schemes, fencing of national roads,dipping schemes, access roads in rural areas, tree planting and mainten-ance of schools, clinics, drainage, roads, and public buildings.

One of the central strategies emerging from government to deal withthe structural unemployment in the country is the introduction of learn-erships. These were to be tied to a broad-based programme to ensure thatat least 70 per cent of the workers have basic levels of literacy and numer-acy by 2005. Since most of the unemployed are young people, the summit agreed to dramatically expand the number of learnershipsthrough which the unemployed could both get access to skills as well asjobs. This is to be accomplished without jeopardizing existing employ-ment patterns by displacing existing employees. Two of the constituen-cies at the summit, business and government, agreed to register 72,000 unemployed learners in this learnership skills development programmeby May 2004 (NEDLAC 2003). These will be funded by the SETAs, theNational Skills Fund and NEDLAC. There will be definite quotas for theselearnerships – 85 per cent African, 54 per cent women and 95 per cent oflearners to be under 35 years of age. The learnerships will be used in boththe expanded public works programmes as well as the public investment


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initiatives. The summit also agreed on various measures to strengthenthe SETAs through which the learnerships will be implemented.

The most serious challenge to the democratic order in South Africaremains the extreme disparities in wealth and poverty. While the demo-cratic government has made some impressive gains since 1994, it has notsubstantially altered the race and class divisions. Social policy is a vitalingredient for transformation. Given the legacy of Apartheid, that policywill have to be sufficiently bold in conception and wide-ranging in imple-mentation to make a substantial difference in the lives of ordinary SouthAfricans. To be sure there have been some spectacular successes, but theseare too few and far between the reality of grinding poverty for the masses.The legitimacy of the government ultimately rests on whether the pace ofchange can match the popular expectations of delivery.

Contours of Zimbabwean education policies

Successes and failures of education and labour

The trajectory of Zimbabwean education policy and practice can be dividedinto three periods. Roughly, the first decade of independence (1980s) wit-nessed an unprecedented expansion of education at all levels. These gainswere reversed during the second decade of independence (1990s) followingthe introduction of ESAPs. Currently, it is not an exaggeration to say thatthe country’s education system, like its economy and polity, is in deep crisis.

Following the perspective that education had a crucial role to play in apost-colonial African country, Robert Mugabe (1990: 9) announced, ‘(I)believe that a commitment to education is a commitment to developmentand that manpower training is essential for the many development tasksthat require a trained and enlightened cadre. The prosperity of the SADCC[Southern African Development Coordination Conference] region willdepend, among other interrelated forces, on the effective and efficientutilisation of human resources . . . (T)he solution of unemployment isnecessarily related to the education and training programme.’

It is clear from the evidence that education enrolments expanded dramatically after decolonization. Like many other newly independentAfrican governments, the Zimbabwean government made education apriority in order to deal with the legacy of racist inequalities and dispar-ities inherited from the colonial regime. A dual system of educationbased on racist criteria characterized the colonial period. It followed thelines of the dual labour market, even though there was a dearth of skilledand semi-labour existing side by side with rising unemployment amongstblacks. The colonial government spent $44.7 per year on every black child


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at school and $490.9 on every white child (Chung 1988: 118). The newgovernment inherited a deeply racialised and unequal education systemwhere the content of the curricula was singularly inappropriate to thehistory, the needs and concerns of Zimbabweans.

To confront the twin challenges of an unequal and irrelevant raciallysegregated education system, the new government in Zimbabwe madefundamental changes with decolonization in 1980. Independence broughtabout the Transitional National Development Programme that stated veryclearly that education, culture and training would be priorities in thebattle against racially based inequalities. In many ways, education wasregarded as part of the compensation for the previous exclusion underthe white minority regime.

The war of liberation had taken its toll, especially in the rural areas,where educational facilities lay in ruins. The new government had torebuild the schools and rehabilitate the many refugees through a pro-gramme envisaged to introduce a system of free, compulsory universaleducation at the primary level. To this end, it invested very heavily ineducation. In the very first year of independence its expenditure on edu-cation doubled and by the end of 1990 it had grown to 10 per cent ofGDP and about 18.5 per cent of the national budget. The results of thisexpenditure were very impressive indeed. In the space of five years of inde-pendence, the increased spending and priority of education had startedto pay off handsomely as the provision of education expanded dramati-cally. By 1985, there was a very impressive record of primary educationenrolments which had increased from 0.8 million before independenceto 2.2 million and from a mere 74,000 to 500,000 in secondary schools(see Tables 4.2 and 4.3).

Consequently, the proportion of white enrolments dropped in anunparalleled manner. In 1977 whites accounted for 85 per cent of primaryschool enrolments and 87 per cent of secondary school enrolments. By1985 the respective proportions had dropped to 10 per cent and 11 per cent(Zvobgo 1986: 339). Similar expansion was evident in the tertiary sector.Between 1976 and 1985 the University of Zimbabwe experienced a 315per cent increase while enrolment at teacher training colleges increasedby 170 per cent (Chung 1988: 126). By the end of the first decade of inde-pendence about 90 per cent of the children of primary schoolgoing agewere in school. The declaration that primary education was a basic humanright had been realized and the goal of universal primary education had been accomplished. In the first five years of independence alone, the number of primary schools almost doubled and the number a secondaryschools increased from 177 at independence to a phenomenal 1,206 by


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1984. By 1989 there were 1,502 secondary schools, an increase in less thana decade of a phenomenal 662 per cent. Correspondingly, the number ofteachers increased from 18,483 in 1979 to 60,886 by 1989, an increaseof 229 per cent (UNESCO 2000b).

Few can deny that this expansion represented a serious attempt ateducating the mass of the formerly colonized people and Zimbabwe’sperformance compared very favourably with the rates for the rest of thecontinent. The success in promoting access to education at all levels wascoupled with the notion of building a new nation in the post-colonialperiod. It was an integral part of the decolonization of the country, notonly to replace colonial administrators with skilled Africans, but also tocreate a new sense of Zimbabwean identity (Obanya 1999). However,there remained profound problems. Raftopoulos (2003) mentions thefollowing five issues: (i) absence of a comprehensive policy framework;(ii) access and gender equity; (iii) relevance of the curriculum; (iv) schooldropouts; and (v) finance.

Table 4.2 Primary school enrolment, 1980–2000

Year Male Female Total % Male % Female

1980 647,761 588,233 1,235,994 52.41 47.591981 892,680 822,489 1,715,169 52.05 47.951982 991,111 916,114 1,907,225 51.97 48.031983 1,060,154 984,333 2,044,487 51.85 48.151984 1,101,899 1,030,405 2,132,304 51.68 48.321985 1,142,480 1,074,398 2,216,878 51.54 48.461986 1,160,166 1,104,887 2,265,053 51.22 48.781987 1,146,361 1,104,958 2,251,319 50.92 49.081988 1,122,662 1,089,441 2,212,103 50.75 49.251989 1,131,986 1,091,185 2,223,171 50.92 49.081990 1,073,452 1,046,429 2,119,881 50.64 49.361991 1,168,460 1,126,484 2,294,944 50.91 49.091992 1,162,568 1,143,200 2,305,768 50.42 49.581993 1,258,465 1,178,206 2,436,671 51.65 48.351994 1,202,569 1,163,651 2,366,220 50.82 49.181995 1,259,891 1,222,686 2,482,577 50.75 49.251996 1,265,891 1,227,900 2,493,791 50.76 49.241997 1,259,888 1,231,473 2,491,361 50.57 49.431998 1,265,177 1,223,762 2,488,939 50.83 49.171999 1,251,533 1,208,790 2,460,323 50.87 49.132000 1,251,921 1,208,748 2,460,669 50.88 49.12

Source: Raftopoulos (2003), citing Nherera (2000).

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The extreme disparities of the colonial era were premised on race andclass. A whole range of policies and practices combined to ensure the strictracial segmentation of the labour market so that there would be no par-ity in black and white wages, no equality in access to apprenticeshipsand other training facilities and favourable arrangements for white tradeunions. State intervention was clearly imperative to reverse the effects ofthese colonial inequalities between settlers and indigenous people. TheMinistry of Manpower Planning and Development was established todeal with this legacy of inequality. It instituted a National ManpowerSurvey (1981–3) for the purposes of implementation.

This state intervention was an attempt by the government to affordthe previously excluded black population the skills to participate effect-ively in the economy. It was, however, bedevilled by administrative andother problems from the start as Raftopoulos (2003) asserts:

• A shortage of qualified and experienced technical trainers because ofdeteriorating conditions of service, resulting in the underutilizationof the institutions.

Table 4.3 Secondary school enrolment, 1980–2000

Year Male Female Total % Male % Female

1980 42,132 32,189 74,321 56.69 43.311981 86,550 62,140 148,690 58.21 41.791982 134,084 93,563 227,647 58.90 41.101983 187,583 128,855 316,438 59.28 40.721984 248,116 168,297 416,413 59.58 40.421985 287,061 194,939 482,000 59.56 40.441986 320,788 216,639 537,427 59.69 40.311987 354,175 250,477 604,652 58.58 41.421988 373,026 267,979 641,005 58.19 41.811989 386,928 283,687 670,615 57.70 42.301990 381,030 291,626 672,656 56.65 43.351991 397,954 312,665 710,619 56.00 44.001992 368,070 289,274 657,344 55.99 44.011993 355,262 284,890 640,152 55.50 44.501994 361,835 296,083 657,918 55.00 45.001995 386,775 324,319 711,094 54.39 45.611996 404,405 346,944 751,349 53.82 46.181997 421,039 367,565 788,604 53.39 46.611998 442,226 387,751 829,977 53.28 46.721999 442,226 391,813 834,039 53.02 46.982000 448,981 395,202 844,183 53.19 46.81

Source: Raftopoulos (2003), citing Nherera (2000).

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• Inadequate training and equipment, and an outdated curriculumbeing delivered by instructors who lacked industrial experience.

• The largest increase in enrolment at the technical colleges was in thearea of Business Studies, rather than technical/vocational training.

• Government training institutions did not seriously address the disad-vantaged groups such as women. For example, of the total of 1,678apprentices in Harare, Bulawayo and Gweru in 1999, only 9.6 per centwere females.

In 1991 Zimbabwe adopted the ESAP in order to reduce governmentspending by removing subsidies on basic services and to recover some ofthe costs from the taxpayers. The ESAP package of policies closely reflectedthe standard IMF/World Bank economic reform strategy including, interalia, the following sub-programmes: trade liberalization, deregulation ofprices and wages, restructuring of the public sector, reduction of gov-ernment spending, control of inflation, maintenance of positive real inter-est rates, removal of government subsidies, reduction of the budget deficitand the enforcement of cost recovery measures in health and education(Mukotekwa 1999: 11). These policies followed the IMF-supported stabi-lization programmes that were supposedly designed to assist countrieswith severe balance of payments and inflation problems.

The proposed changes, especially in relation to reducing social spending,were related to a presupposition on the role of the state in the economy.Far from the compensatory and developmental role as envisaged by thepost-colonial state, it was now to be a lean body concerned only with cater-ing for the extremely weak and marginalized. This package of policiesemanates from a particular understanding of the manner in which gov-ernment spending leads to state interference that in turn leads to economicinefficiencies. The consequence of this position is that control over thesocial sector should be ceded by the state to private companies.

The impact of this policy shift was almost immediate. Public expend-iture on education dropped significantly during the 1990s as the adjust-ment agenda of the World Bank was implemented almost to the letter.The education vote declined to under 5 per cent of GDP and the percapita allocation to the Education Ministry fell from Z$38 in 1990 toZ$30 in 2000. Per capita expenditure in education had peaked in thevery year preceding the adoption of ESAP. Since then it has been insteady decline so that by 1998 real government spending on primaryeducation stood at 32 per cent less than its peak. The consequences of thiswas demoralizing for teachers who now had to cope with enormouslylarge class sizes in exchange for desperately low salaries. The precipitous

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fall in per capita spending on education had the effect of placing thequality of education under far greater threat. School fees, which hadbeen abolished at primary level at the time of independence, were reintro-duced. In fact, according to Mlambo (cited in Mokutekwa 1999: 14), thesecondary school fees went up by 150 per cent in 1992 alone. Theimpressive record of success in the 1980s was being rolled back as chil-dren started to drop out of school and parents started to withdraw theirchildren from classes. Shifting the burden of education onto parents wassupposed to be part of the cost recovery measures of adjustment and itsimpact was felt more heavily by girls than by boys. The salaries of teach-ers had fallen in real terms from an annual average of $4,934 in 1990 to$2,249 in 1996.

The impact of adjustment on employment and the labour market wasdevastating, in part because firms opted for capital-intensive and export-orientated production that involved a progressive shedding of jobs. Bythe end of 1995 the public and private sectors had retrenched almost 50,000workers. In addition almost 300,000 school leavers were entering thelabour market annually and the number of jobs created in the economyfell far short of what was necessary to absorb them. Raftopoulos (2003,citing Kanyenze) suggests that only 10 per cent of school leavers manageto find employment. The others are just inappropriately trained for theparticular needs of the economy. The Minister of Public Service, Labourand Social Welfare stated that about 18,000 workers were retrenched inthe manufacturing sector alone – mainly in the textile, clothing and engi-neering industries. In agriculture dismissed permanent farm workers re-emerged as casual and seasonal workers without the same wages, benefits,job security or working conditions (Mukotekwa et al. 1999: 8).

By 1996, even the World Bank had realized that the policy was a dis-astrous failure (World Bank 1996). The government was also fully awareof the implications of minimizing state expenditure and proposed to offsetthese by introducing a programme on the social effects of adjustment inthe very same year in which the ESAP was implemented. Called theSocial Dimensions of Adjustment (SDA) Programme, its objectives werehighlighted in the following terms:

The program’s social dimensions of adjustment (SDA) component wasto address the transitional hardships brought on by the proposed civilservice downsizing, the removal of maize meal subsidy to poor urbanconsumers, and the reinforcement or introduction of health and edu-cation fees. It centered around a social development fund with twoparts: (1) a social safety net, which provided support for food expenses


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and school examination and health fees; and (2) an employment and training program for those affected by the downsizing.

(World Bank 1996)

This was supposed to mitigate the recognized negative effects of adjust-ment by establishing a Social Development Fund with two sub-programmes – namely, the Employment and Training Programme andthe Social Welfare Programme. The former was designed to train dismissedworkers to become entrepreneurs as job creators rather than seekers. Theprogramme entailed workers attending a five-day business training coursein order to be eligible for a government loan at low interest rates. Thelatter was supposed to cater for the immediate needs of the very poor byexempting them from cost recovery measures in health and in educa-tion and by direct transfers for subsistence (Mukotekwa et al. 1999: 11).

Faced with the growing problem of unemployment, the government’sresponse was to establish Vocational Training Centres (VTCs) where youthscould be trained in life-long skills, especially for self-employment andwhere newly unemployed workers could be re-skilled in order to increaseproductivity and enhance economic activity and development moregenerally.

In line with IMF and World Bank prescriptions, the main idea was thatthe costs of providing education should be shared between the taxpay-ers and the beneficiaries receiving the service of education (World Bank1988: 94). The hardships implied by these measures were supposed to betransitional since the anticipated growth in the economy would allowthe benefits to filter down to the poorest of the poor. It goes without say-ing that the hardships in Zimbabwe have not proved to be temporary.This begs a number of questions about causality. There are obviously awhole variety of reasons for the economic crisis in the country, but interms of one simple indicator, the universal provision of education,causality can be traced directly to the ESAP and the manner in which itwas implemented in Zimbabwe. Having said that, it is also necessary to mention that the heavy investment in education by the newly-independent Zimbabwean government did not, as envisaged, translateinto economic growth, job creation and prosperity.

Tracing the line of causality between public expenditure and economicperformance is complex. No such difficulty existed for the editor of TheEconomist when he announced that it is ‘an ineluctable fact . . . that edu-cation is now sowing the seeds of economic change in backward coun-tries just as the spread of transport systems sowed that change in morefortunate countries in the last centuries’ (cited in Sutton 1965: 192). What


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is clear, however, is that structural adjustment has not led to economicrecovery in Zimbabwe. Quite the contrary, as Sachikonye’s (2002: 14)convincing account of the economic downward spiral attests, ‘(W)hen itattained independence in 1980, there were high hopes expressed forZimbabwe’s political and economic future . . . By the late 1990, thesehopes had been dashed. Instead of expanding, the economy has begun tocontract, from being a breadbasket, the country had become a basket case.’

It is clear that the Zimbabwean economy did not perform well at allunder the ESAP – it grew at an average of only one per cent during thistime compared to 4 per cent in the five years prior to the introductionof this policy. According to Sachikonye (2002), the really serious melt-down of the Zimbabwean economy started in 1997. It was directly relatedto the political crisis in the country and the growing opposition and civilresistance that has fractured Zimbabwean society. The nation-buildingideals of the early 1980s now lie in tatters, with an imploded economy,deteriorating education and health sectors and an effectively delegit-imized polity.

The educated elite in Zimbabwe has not fared very well in the absenceof a concomitant generation of employment opportunities, except dur-ing the very early years of independence. The brain drain, or brain aid tothe North, has been a crucial dimension of the various coping strategies.It seeks a way out of the cycle of education provision without job cre-ation. During the colonial period, educational provision was heavilyweighted in favour of whites. Decolonization was supposed to provide adifferent purpose for education, in favour of the majority of Zimbabwe’scitizens enshrined in the concept, ‘Education with Production’. However,these plans have been overtaken by recent political events in the coun-try that have driven the Zimbabwean economy into a deep crisis. A reso-lution of the political question is urgently required if Zimbabwe is toemerge from its current crisis.

There is some evidence which appears to contradict this extremely bleakpicture. Despite all these problems, the United Nations Educational,Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Institute for Statistics,together with the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation andDevelopment), found in their World Education Indicators Programmethat the correlation between human capital and economic growth inZimbabwe was amongst the strongest in the world over the past twodecades (UNESCO 2002). It is, however, difficult to understand just howthis positive correlation was arrived at when most of the available evi-dence points to a lack of employment opportunities for the hundreds ofthousands of school leavers and tertiary graduates.


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In response to the problems of unemployment and education, theZimbabwean government instituted a Presidential Commission of Enquiryinto Education and Training in 1998 with terms of reference to inquireinto the relevance of the current system of education. The Commissionfound a number of very serious problems indeed. Raftopoulos (2003) men-tions the following:

• The majority of students lacked ‘relevant practical training skillssince the curriculum was mainly academic and theoretical’. Thisproblem was highlighted by the lack of a match between phenom-enal educational expansion and low levels of economic growth.

• The system was also unable to produce the ‘complex skills’ requiredby the growing demands of information technology.

• That twenty-first-century education and training policy makers‘should bear in mind that the future will be dominated by globalisa-tion and that Zimbabwe will be part of a global community’.

• The importance of ‘participatory democracy in which citizens play amore active role in political, economic, social and educational affairs’.

• The education philosophy should be based on Unhu/Ubantu principleswhich emphasized a ‘good person morally with such values as honesty,trustworthiness, discipline, accountability, respect for other people andelders, harmony and hospitality’.

• In terms of national culture the report recommended a blending oftraditional beliefs and institutions with a dynamic multiculturalism.Although the report recommended the inculcation of ‘patriotism’, itposed this issue in a tolerant way, emphasizing also the importance ofincluding human rights issues on the curriculum. This observation isparticularly important given the form of intolerant state nationalismthat emerged after the political crisis that emerged in 2000.

Two elements were central to the recommendations of the Commission.Firstly, that the education and training received would be relevant to theneeds of the Zimbabwean economy and realistic in respect of the pres-sures of globalization. Secondly, that the curricula would emphasizehuman rights, tolerance and appreciation of the necessity and benefits ofdiversity. The repression of the late 1990s and early 2000s ‘were to severelytest the propositions of this Commission’ (Raftopoulos 2003).

Unemployment in its various shapes and forms remains a key devel-opment challenge in Zimbabwe. In response to this problem, the Inter-national Labour Organization proposed a project to draft the ZimbabweEmployment Creation Act (ZECA). This was supposed to be the central


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feature of a national job creation strategy and a number of subprojectswere proposed.

The plan also envisaged the revival of the Zimbabwe Programme forSocial and Economic Transformation (ZIMPREST) which was supposedto be the second stage of the ESAP. It was a sort of local (indigenized)ESAP launched in 1998 to complete the unfinished business in realizingthe objectives of this macroeconomic programme in anticipation of sup-port from the IMF. The policies actually pursued, however, were highlyambiguous and eventually resulted in a public announcement by Presi-dent Mugabe that ESAP is dead. ZIMPREST was supposed to deal in adecisive manner with the social consequences of structural adjustment.However, Zimbabwe found itself in the grip of its most severe economiccrisis. A more concerted effort to get the economy back on track wasrequired and thus the Zimbabwe Millennium Economic RecoveryProgramme was born in 2001.

The decline and ongoing crisis of Zimbabwe has a multilayered causalityand, therefore, requires multiple remedies. There are no quick fixes for a situ-ation as complex as the post-colonial former settler society of Zimbabwe.It is clear that the lack of material delivery, especially in relation to theland question, lies at the heart of the delegitimization of the state. Whilethe radical fast-track land reform programme has allowed the currentregime a lease of life, it is questionable whether this is sustainable in thelong run. Even the gains and successes in the system of education areslowly being rolled back as the repression of the state places basic teach-ing and learning under threat. It is obvious that a resolution to the crisisof legitimacy is a precondition for a revival of the economy. However,this alone will not provide the conditions for a more dynamic inter-action between education and employment. While a modicum of polit-ical stability is clearly necessary for economic revival and development,it is not sufficient. Development cannot take place in a society that isravaged by unrest and stricken by poor leadership. There is an urgentneed for the re-emergence of a national project in Zimbabwe. There willobviously be many different versions of such a project, but it must haveat least two ingredients to succeed. It must appreciate, tolerate and evenencourage the diversity of the country, and it must develop a polity thatenjoys the legitimacy of the mass of the population.

4.5 Conclusion

This chapter has employed two main variables for the comparative analy-sis of Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Firstly, there is the question


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of legitimacy, related to material delivery through social policy.Secondly, the state of education and its connection to the processes ofeconomic growth, job creation and development in each of these coun-tries is crucial. There is an enormous amount of evidence in favour of edu-cation as a key determinant of development. This chapter submits theevidence in the three case studies to critical scrutiny by investigatingjust how investment in human resource development may – or may not –contribute to the process of development. The fact of the matter is thatall states are engaged in some or other way in transferring resources tothe populace in order to enhance legitimacy.

It is interesting to note that the Southern African DevelopmentCommunity (SADC) countries have agreed to a regional qualificationsframework to allow for easy articulation among the qualifications in dif-ferent countries. Developing the skills base is clearly a priority to keeppace with global economic changes in technology and as a stimulus tofurther economic growth and development. But the linkages are com-plicated by the very many agents acting in various ways and in pursuitof different – and often contradictory – interests. The various trainingauthorities set up as parastatals to ensure some uniformity, both nation-ally and regionally, have made some inroads, but the terrain is far toocomplex to be neatly parcelled by such agencies. A huge factor in theproblem as a whole remains the role of business in the process of eco-nomic development. It is now accepted that development cannot reallyhappen without economic growth, without expanding the social cakefor eventual redistribution. However, there remain very many differentviews on how that economic growth should happen in different con-texts. In the South African example, the views of COSATU and the SouthAfrican Communist Party, on the one hand, and the African NationalCongress (ANC), on the other, within the ruling tripartite alliance embodythese differences. While COSATU has been arguing for a syndicalist involve-ment of organized labour in the design of macroeconomic policy (andthe acceptance of the Reconstruction and Development Programme [RDP]as a neo-Keynesian state-driven model for development), the ANC hasmade GEAR its official policy.

There are, of course, overlaps between these two policy frameworks,but they differ fundamentally in emphases and the adoption of GEARhas had profound social consequences, along the same lines as the adop-tion of Structural Adjustment in Zimbabwe. GEAR’s emphasis on fiscaldiscipline, reducing the budget deficit, making the country attractive toforeign investment, and creating space for the emergence and develop-ment of the private sector, in large measure contradicts the urgency for


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social spending to ensure livelihoods and to act as a spur to economicgrowth.

Most recently, inspired by his attendance at a meeting of the SocialistInternational, Mbeki came out with a statement about the limits of themarket to offer any help to the very poor. In an article in ANC Today,Mbeki (2003) announced ‘the Cabinet has resolved that the develop-ment of the Marginalised Economy requires the infusion of capital andother resources by the democratic state to ensure the integration of thiseconomy within the developed sector. The Cabinet’s decisions will neces-sarily involve active partnership with provincial and local governmentsand other social partners.’ This obviously ties in with the decisions takenat the Growth and Development Summit, in particular, the Expanded PublicWorks Programme aimed at addressing unemployment through a seriesof state-directed labour-intensive methods. Even if this is merely an elec-tion ploy designed to address the critics pointing to the lack of materialdelivery in the first decade of democracy, it must be appreciated as ashift from the neoliberal stance of GEAR, since it envisages a muchlarger role for the state in the development process.

Mafeje’s (1996: 35) analysis of the colonial African state sets the stage forthe burden of the past inherited by independent African governments,

(T)he negative relationship between the colonial state and the localcommunity had far-reaching implications. First, it meant that the stateitself was not a product of society at a particular stage of its develop-ment. Second, for its operations it depended on agents which werenot representative of the local community. Third, its economic policywas one of plunder rather than investment . . . It is autocratic, repres-sive, extractive and generally indifferent to the economic well-beingof the majority of the people.

Mafeje (2002: 61) was no less pessimistic about the elites of post-colonialAfrica,

(T)he difficulty in the African case is that, while we are able to point tothe authoritarian character of African regimes, their venality, and to thekleptocratic tendencies of their bureaucracies, we are not able to findwhat might be called the guiding ideology of the emerging African elitessince the Pan-Africanist movement. Our hypothesis is that it is lack ofthis broader vision of society and the region, which has produced thedegenerate political culture of ‘ethnicity’, clientelism and petty dicta-tors. This makes African political elites particularly uncompetitive in the


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global setting. It is the same, which accounts for the disintegration ofthe African states and the unparalleled decay of their economies. . .

The lack of credibility and falling legitimacy of the state lie at the heartof the problem. But this is not the full story. It does not appear to appre-ciate the full extent of the constraints under which the newly-independentstates operated. This, of course, does not exonerate the petty power bro-kers from hanging on to power at all costs, but seeks a more nuancedappreciation of their circumscribed agency under conditions of externalcontrol and manipulation. A consideration of the nature of the state iscrucial for any discussion on social policy, since it has the responsibilityof ensuring social justice and equity for the population.

Notes

1 Kanbur (2000: 3) separates the main disagreements in economic policy, distri-bution and poverty between Group A, called, the Finance Ministry and GroupB called Civil Society.

2 NEDLAC, which was launched in February 1995, is a statutory consultativebody that brings together representatives of government, labour, business,and later civic organizations. The claimed objective of NEDLAC is that it willserve as a consultative body for economic, social, and labour policymaking.

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5Social Policy and the Challenge of Development in Nigeria andGhana: The Cases of Education andLabour Market PoliciesBola Udegbe

5.1 Introduction

The literature on Africa is rife with indices of underdevelopment andabysmal performance and predictions of a bleak future. Some scholars arepessimistic about the future of African development, underplaying the his-torical experience and consequences of centuries of domination and eco-nomic crises. Also overlooked are the retrogressive experiences of structuraladjustment and the impact of neocolonialism. Furthermore, incidences ofpositive development after independence, intra-country and regional dif-ferences in the experiences of growth and general improvement in thewell-being of citizens have been ignored. Indeed, in the face of poverty andlow growth indices, many of the countries still possess human and mater-ial resources that are relatively untapped – or tapped more for the benefitof the North than the South.

There is a general belief among some development scholars that eco-nomic growth is the precursor to social development. Therefore addressingeconomic growth through stringent economic reforms will automaticallylead to social development. Yet the experiences of significant growth rateshave not translated into reduced poverty, inequality and unemployment.Furthermore, development paradigms have gradually shifted from a purelyeconomic development intervention to development with a human face.This underscores the importance of encouraging improved investmentin human capital through policies that are inherently developmental.

African people must therefore be the basis for entrenching a frameworkfor development, through policies which foster a state–society nexus thatis developmental, democratic and socially inclusive (Mkandawire 2001).African states should be ideologically and structurally oriented to social

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Bola Udegbe 149

policies that directly influence the welfare and security of their people.Enhancing social capacities increases the psychological and physicalavailability of individuals to contribute to economic growth and the devel-opment of their society. In attempting to solve the problem of ‘stagnation’or underdevelopment in Africa, lessons of successes and failures must beconsidered in order to determine the obstacles. This chapter will investi-gate these by examining education and labour policies and outcomes inGhana and Nigeria.

5.2 Education policies in Ghana and Nigeria

Ghana and Nigeria, both Anglophone West African nations, gained inde-pendence in May 1957 and October 1960, respectively, and had similarexperiences in struggles for independence and challenges of development.In general, the political history of both countries since independence hasbeen characterized by political instability – especially in Nigeria, whichto date has been largely controlled by the military. Of the 43 years ofindependence, Nigeria has had 27 years of military rule. Ghana, on theother hand, has experienced a shorter period of military rule, albeit, thelast military head of state succeeded himself as the elected president ofthe next republic. The political climate before the current republics inGhana and Nigeria, which commenced in 1993 and 1999 respectively,was characterized by uncertainty (with frequent coups d’état). Consequently,since the period of growth immediately after independence, there wasno continuity in economic policies or development programmes.

In Ghana, the objective of the first post-independence government ofDr Kwame Nkrumah was Free Universal Primary Education, includingthe two-tier system of education involving primary/middle educationand secondary education. Each Local Authority was to build, equip andmaintain primary and middle schools in their areas. Following the adop-tion of the Dzobo Report of 1973, the 6-3-3-4 educational system (sixyears primary, three years junior secondary, three years senior secondaryand at least four years of university education) was adopted. The firsttwo levels constitute the basic education stage, which is free and com-pulsory for every Ghanaian child of school-going age. In the old systemthe structure was 10-5-2-3 (ten years elementary, five years secondary,two years sixth form and at least three years university) or 8-5-2-3 (inwhich some pupils suitable for primary school education leave aftereight years (for example, Federal Republic of Ghana 1996).

In 1987, an Education Reform Programme (ERP) was undertaken toexamine issues such as the inadequate funding of education, the lack of

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necessary curriculum materials such as books, the inadequate supply offurniture and equipment, poor quality of teaching and learning, poorpatronage of the school system, and an insufficient supply of qualifiedteachers. As part of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), the pro-gramme places an emphasis on vocational and technical skills acquisi-tion, cost-effectiveness and cost recovery. The education reform aimedto achieve: (i) the reduction of pre-tertiary education from 17 to 12 years;(ii) increased access to education at all levels; and (iii) enhancement ofeducation sector management and budgeting procedures (for example,Quist 2003).

The Education Reform Review Committee (1994) undertook a review ofthe ERP and this culminated in the National Education Forum of 1994 todiscuss the focus of education to the year 2000. In October 1996, the FreeCompulsory Universal Basic Education Programme (FCUBE) was launched,with the aim of improving upon the 1987 reform – nearly 40 years after theoriginal universal primary education was launched under the governmentled by Kwame Nkrumah. The programme, which is to be implementedfrom 1996 to 2005, seeks to increase primary school enrolment to make itas close to 100 per cent as possible and to address the particular problem ofenrolment of girls in basic education (WGESA 2000). The programme isalso geared towards the improvement of the quality of teaching and learn-ing, management efficiency of the education sector and the relevance ofeducation to the manpower needs of the country.

The FCUBE incorporates Education Sector Analysis (ESA) to evaluateprogress made in implementation from each subsector and guide plan-ners in identifying and designing the relative areas of priorities. The non-formal education division of the Ministry was established in 1991 toeradicate illiteracy in Ghana by 2011, through the Functional LiteracyProgramme. Tertiary Education reforms were launched earlier than thepre-tertiary in 1991 with a Government White Paper on the UniversityRationalisation Committee Report. In the report, tertiary education wasredefined to include all formal education beyond the senior secondaryschools, such as universities, polytechnics, and teacher training colleges.The reform aimed to expand access to tertiary education, improve qual-ity of teaching and learning and provide the strong infrastructural basefor accelerated technical manpower training to support sustainabledevelopment.

In Nigeria from independence to 1966, all levels of education witnessedexpansion and some consolidation as a result of the Universal PrimaryEducation (UPE) programme embarked upon by the Eastern and WesternRegions (Aleyideino 1989). Review Commissions, set up between 1960 and

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1962, evaluated the programmes and their reports influenced the variousregional policy decisions during the period. For example in the west, mod-ern schools were phased out, class sizes in the lower grades were reduced,teachers’ conditions of service were improved while untrained teacherswere gradually eliminated, and vocational and technical education wasemphasized. In the east, non-viable primary schools were merged, sciencewith an emphasis on agriculture was included in the curriculum, the age ofadmission was increased to six years and primary school education wasreduced to six years. Schools also provided training in woodwork and met-alwork for boys in the last two years of primary school. In the north vol-untary schools were transferred to the Local Education Authorities andthose not transferred remained private schools without grants.

The period witnessed continued cooperation between governments,the voluntary agencies and some communities in the maintenance ofpost-primary education. The government experimented in diversifyingsecondary education by establishing model comprehensive schools andunity schools (Aleyideino 1989). The comprehensive schools had awidespread curriculum ranging from literary to science and commercialsubjects, fine arts and technical skills. The unity schools sought to bringchildren from diverse ethnic groups together in other to strengthennational unity. The country was also committed to improving manpowerneeds to accelerate development through expansion of tertiary institu-tions and massive government efforts in awarding overseas scholarshipsfor undergraduate and postgraduate degrees.

The period 1966–79 was an era of military rule and coincided with the1970–4 Development Plan which emphasized a united strong, self-reliant,democratic, just and egalitarian society with bright and full opportunityfor all citizens. The main educational policies of this military era includedcurriculum development, National Policy on Education (NPE), the UPEScheme (a nation-wide Federal Military Government programme con-ceived during a period of oil wealth), and the government’s takeover ofvoluntary agency and private schools. Although the government’s deci-sion to take over schools was largely inspired by a sense of urgent needto promote national unity and promote equity in standards, the policyturned out to be a major error as the quality of the schools declinedsharply, particularly after the oil boom years.

During the Second Civilian Republic (1979–83), the UPE scheme, whichhad led to a significant impact in terms of numbers of schools, enrolmentsand number of teachers, suffered a major setback (Umo 1989). The cen-tralization characteristic of the military years gave way to some degree ofdecentralization. In the United Party of Nigeria (UPN)-controlled west, the

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provision of free education led to a reduction in the levels of and increasein neighbourhood schools. The purpose was to improve access to free edu-cation by placing pupils in schools not more than 5 kilometres away fromtheir homes in order to allow parents play active roles in supervising andmonitoring their children. The UPN states witnessed increases in thenumber of schools (tagged ‘quantitative education’) and teacher educa-tion was expanded through distance learning and in-service educationprogrammes. In Oyo state, for instance, the number of secondaryschools increased from 236 in 1979 to 752 in 1983 (Aleyideino 1989). Atthe tertiary level, separate universities of technology were established toboost the technological development of the nation. During this period,seven federal universities of technology were established.

The main thrust of the NPE is the 6-3-3-4 system of education. It aimsto utilize education as an instrument for building a self-reliant nationand the inculcation of national consciousness. The ultimate plan was tomake education free at all levels and three types of grants were made tothe states: (i) recurrent grants which are based on enrolment; (ii) grantsfor capital project based on approved expansion plans; and (iii) specialgrants for special education projects. There were also detailed policy pre-scriptions on the provision of adult and non-formal education, specialeducation, teachers training and the language of instruction.

The military government that came into power in December 1983,after the NPE, ‘depoliticized’ the educational system (Adesina 1989).This entailed harsh measures to control growth and also share the bur-den of funding with parents, voluntary organizations and the privatesector at the post-primary levels. State governments began to charge feesor impose levies. At the federal level, universities were merged and pri-vate ones were banned. Consequently, by the end of 1984 the numberof universities was reduced from 32 to 22.

The first three decades after independence have been described as onesof growth without development (for example, Adesina 1989). Faithfuland consistent implementation of the policy framework has been lack-ing and, consequently, there is a wide gap between policy prescriptionand practice. Several factors contributed to the poor implementation.First, the instability of governments and associated incessant military coupsmade it difficult to pursue educational policies in a consistent manner.Secondly, there is a lack of political will or absence of political disciplineto implement policies. During the short spells of civilian regimes, exces-sive and systematic politization led to deliberate deviation or distortionof established educational goals to achieve self-serving individual or


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group goals. Thirdly, poor funding of the educational sector (resultingfrom economic problems or lack of commitment to the policy) led toimplementation problems. Finally, planning and implementation is fraughtwith lack of reliable data.

In recognition of the disadvantaged position of women and the globalcall for gender equity, in 1990 a blueprint on women’s education wasdeveloped, which outlined measures to achieve gender equity in partici-pation at all levels of education. Education of girls therefore became oneof the government’s priority areas. The Nigerian military government in1996 endorsed the principle of nine years’ universal basic education(UBE). However, there was no practical follow-up until the civilianadministration of President Olusegun Obasanjo adopted the UBE in1999, as a major educational policy commitment. Like the GhanaianFCUBE, it aims to provide universal, free and compulsory nine years ofprimary and junior secondary education. The UBE Commission is tocoordinate the scheme from the academic year 2000/2001, and reachingJSS3 in 2008/2009. The programme also places emphasis on theimprovement in the numbers, training and motivation of teachers;enriching the curriculum to lay the foundation for life-long learning;inculcating literacy and numeracy, and developing an aptitude for prac-tical work; and the introduction of information technology into theschool system. UBE incorporates an assessment (ESA) of the whole spec-trum of education, involving a collaboration of all stakeholders, withthe purpose of identifying problems, designing alternative policy optionsand implications and evaluating the capacities and needs of institutions.In general, the policy on universal education and ESA in both countriesreflect global international agenda largely based on influences frominternational multilateral and regional agencies.

5.3 Labour policies

In any consideration of the social and economic development of a country,work, which ultimately determines individual and national incomes, is animportant factor. This is because the levels of income generated by theactive population determine the quality of life of the whole population.Although the Nigerian employment policy aims to promote full employ-ment of all men and women who are available and willing to work(Adelodun 2002), there is no articulate policy with regard to employment(Yesufu 2000). The core national labour legislations – which relate toemployment conditions, employee welfare, trade unions and dispute

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resolution – suffer from neglect largely due to unavailability of time seriesdata on employment and information to provide a clear picture of thereality. Nigeria has institutes of manpower research and training, yet theirindividual efforts in contributing to available data source and the coordi-nation by the Federal Office of Statistics has been unsatisfactory. In general,the governmental instruments (such as the Ministry of Employment, Laborand Productivity and National Manpower Board) which perform routineadministrative duties within the framework of government legislation andthe implementation of International Labor Organization Conventions, arealso neglected by governments through creation of states and poor fund-ing. Consequently, these bodies have become penurious, understaffed andinefficient (Yesufu 2000).

The increasing visibility of unemployment (particularly during theadjustment period) led to the establishment of some employment-promoting strategies. This included the National Directorate forEmployment (NDE) established in 1986 by the military government,which has the responsibility for training and the generation of jobs forthe unemployed. Between 1987 and 1996, about half a million partici-pants benefited from the programme (Adelodun 2001). However, con-sidering the large number of people in need of services in the face ofinadequate resources, the effect of NDE is weak.

In both countries, propaganda-related programmes were establishedby wives of military heads of state to promote the social and economicconditions of women through job creation, the provision of credits andlocally built machinery. In Nigeria, the Better Life for Rural Women andFamily Economic Advancement Programme fall into this category. Theseemingly laudable schemes, which received some mention in nationalplans, were mysteriously funded (Yesufu 2000). The projects, whichachieved nothing more than increasing awareness of women’s issues,were run by a clique of women who undemocratically converted theirpositions as first ladies for the purpose of increasing the support base fortheir spouses and for self-aggrandisement (Udegbe 1995).

Ghana also lacks articulate labour policies. National organs exist tooperate within the framework of governmental legislation on labourand the ILO Conventions to which Ghana is a signatory. The main organis the Ministry for Manpower Development and Employment and theNational Advisory Committee on Labour, a tripartite organ that advisesthe minister of labour on all matters of policy with respect to labourrelations in Ghana. In recent times, efforts have been made by bothcountries to establish a comprehensive and articulate Labour Bill. InMay 2002, a Labour Bill was proposed with the intention of bringing the

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existing labour enactments into conformity with the Ghanaian Constitutionand the several International Labour Organization (ILO) Conventions thathaven been ratified by Ghana.

The labour market in Ghana is such that the formal sector (in whichwages are defined by institutional forces) is largely dominated by thepublic services. Yet the share of the formal sector in employment is smalland is declining, while the private informal sector’s share is on the increase.There is, however, a tendency for government interventions and policiesto be directed more towards the public sector. Canagarajah and Mudzmar(1997) have argued that the view of labour policy in many developingcountries is narrow and therefore inappropriate because it ignores theself-employed and the wage earners in the informal sector and focusesspecifically on the formal sector, a small part of the labour force.

In response to the international financial institutions (IFIs), both coun-tries recently developed poverty reduction strategies. The Nigerian FourthRepublic Government started with the Poverty Alleviation Programmein 2000, with the objective of providing jobs for a number of unemployedpeople and stimulating production within a period of one year. The objec-tive of the current National Poverty Eradication Programme, establishedin 2001, is to eradicate poverty through strategies that include YouthEmployment and Social Welfare Services Schemes. The Ghanaian PovertyReduction Strategy (2003–2005) seeks to provide an enabling environmentthat empowers all Ghanaians to participate in wealth creation through

• the attainment of adequate wage and self-employment opportunitiesfor entrants into the labour market;

• small-scale enterprises and employment for women;• facilitating linkages between the formal and informal sectors of the

economy;• promoting technological efficiency;• reforming traditional apprenticeship system; and• supporting organizations of persons with disability.

5.4 Education outcomes

Nigeria, with about 118 million people, has a higher population thanGhana – Nigeria being about six and half times more populous. From 1975to 2000, the annual population growth rates are 2.7 and 2.9 per cent forGhana and Nigeria, respectively. To what extent have there been improvededucational opportunities in Ghana and Nigeria since independence? Whatare the outcomes of the educational and labour policies in both countries?

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Expenditure on education

Figure 5.1 compares government expenditure in Ghana and Nigeria withsub-Saharan African (SSA) averages. Although in both countries, expen-diture on education is less than SSA averages, it is higher for Ghana thanfor Nigeria. In Ghana, expenditure on education grew from 3.8 per cent ofgross domestic product (GDP) in 1960 to 5.4 per cent in the mid-1970s,and then dropped sharply during the period of economic crisis in the late1970s to the mid-1980s (with expenditure as low as 2.53 per cent in1985). Thereafter, government spending has been rising gradually, althoughit had not approached the 1970s peak. While the total expenditure (aspercentage of GDP) from 1990 to 1997 has been rising to a level thatmakes it comparable to those of other African countries, discretionaryrecurrent expenditure as a proportion of total government expendituredeclined (Penrose 1998). In the same period, basic education and sec-ondary education grew initially, but began to decline and post-secondaryeducation showed very slow growth. This may be related to the fact thatGhana adopted the SAP earlier and cost recovery was a major feature ofthe package. Another feature of government total education expenditurein Ghana is that a larger proportion was recurrent expenditure, increas-ing from 86 per cent in 1990 to 97.2 per cent in 1996 (UNESCO 1999),leaving less room for public capital expenditure.

Year

19981996

19941992

19901988

19861984

19821980

19701960

Val

ue

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

0

Ghana Nigeria SSA

Figure 5.1 Government expenditure on education in Ghana and Nigeria, 1960–98(percentage of GDP)Source: UNESCO 1999.

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The Ghanaian total and current expenditure on education from 1990to 1996 witnessed an increase in terms of percentage of gross nationalproduct (GNP) (UNESCO 1999). However, as a proportion of total gov-ernment expenditure, it witnessed a decline from 24.3 per cent in 1990to 19.9 per cent in 1996. Current expenditure on education as a per-centage of total current expenditure was 27.1 per cent and 24.1 per centin 1990 and 1996, respectively. The slight reallocation of total govern-ment expenditure seems to be in favour of debt servicing. Secondaryeducation received a higher proportion of the current expenditure in1984 and 1990, being 29.5 per cent and 34.3 per cent as against primaryeducation (including pre-primary), which stood at 24.5 per cent and29.2 per cent. Tertiary education received 12.5 per cent and 11 per cent ofcurrent expenditure for 1984 and 1990, respectively. A comparison ofboth countries show that while Ghana’s expenditure between 1986 and1992 was 26 per cent, Nigeria’s expenditure was the lowest in theselected countries with 3 per cent (Adenuga 2003).

Figure 5.2 shows the total, capital and recurrent expenditure on edu-cation as percentages of GDP in Nigeria. Between 1950 and 1960, theregional governments and people regarded education as key to overalldevelopment. Consequently 30–40 per cent of regional and federal gov-ernment recurrent expenditure was devoted to primary, secondary, tertiary

Year2001

20001999

19981997

19961995

19941993

19921991

19901989

19881987

19861985

19801975

1970

Val

ue

5

4

3

2

1

0

TEX � Total Expenditure on Education,CEX � Capital Expenditure on EducationREX � Recurrent Expenditure on Education

TEX CEX REX

Figure 5.2 Nigeria: total, capital and recurrent expenditure on education, 1970–2001(percentage of GDP)Source: Derived from Adenuga (2003); Oyinlola and Adam (2003).

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and adult education (Fafunwa 1989). Total expenditure, including recur-rent and capital expenditure, peaked in the mid-1970s, a period that cor-responded with the oil boom. Since the mid-1980s, however, totalexpenditure on education has declined. In addition, capital and recur-rent expenditure declined from 1980 and has remained low. Forinstance, since the early 1980s, the funds for both capital and recurrentexpenditures for universities have fallen drastically (Umo 1989). Althoughthe period of SAP (1986–90 and 1991–4) witnessed some growth in publicexpenditure, in general, the proportion of expenditure on education isinadequate for the needs of the sector (Adenuga 2003; Oyinlola and Adam2003) and falls far below the 26 per cent recommended by the UnitedNations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

The data reveal not only the relatively low level of resources being spenton social services, but also the unpredictable pattern of this proportion ofpublic expenditure, which has a negative impact on the quality of services.More funds are expended on personnel than on the construction andmaintenance of existing facilities and equipment. In recognition of theinadequacy of budgetary allocations to education, the Federal Governmentof Nigeria, under Decree No. 7 of 1993, instituted an Education Tax Fund(ETF), which is financed through a 2 per cent tax on the profits of corpo-rate institutions in Nigeria. This was a result of the demand by theAcademic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), reflected in the 1992 FederalGovernment/ASUU Agreement on University Funding. The fund, whichwas originally meant for university education, was negotiated downwardswithin the Supreme Military Council, despite the agreement.

Literacy rates and school participation

In both Ghana and Nigeria, rates of adult illiteracy declined by about 19 per cent and 22 per cent, respectively, over a period of a decade and ahalf. The proportions of literate Ghanaian and Nigerian youth (aged 15to 24 years) have increased by 16.2 per cent to 21.9 per cent, respect-ively, from 1985 to 2000 (Table 5.1). School enrolment rates can bemeasured by gross enrolment ratios (GER) or net enrolment ratios(NER). While both of these measure the total number of pupils enrolledin a given level of education, the GER is a crude figure because it doesnot take into consideration the pupils of the correct age group for thespecified level of education. Therefore GER figures may be swollen bythe enrolment of children outside the correct age of the designated agegroup. In general, GER figures for both countries are low, particularlybearing in mind the fact that universal free and compulsory educationup to junior secondary level is one of the major goals of education in


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159

Table 5.1 Some education outcomes: Ghana and Nigeria

Education outcomes Ghana Nigeria

1985 1990 1999 1985 1990 1999

Adult (15 years and above) illiteracy (%) 49 42 30 59 51 37Adult illiteracy (male) 36 30 21 48 41 29Adult illiteracy (female) 61 53 39 70 62 46Primary school gross enrollment ratio 1980 1990 94–7 1980 1990 94–7Primary school gross enrollment ratio (male) 79 75 79c 109 91 98c

Primary school gross enrollment ratio (female) 88 82 84 123 104 109Secondary school gross enrollment 95 79 87 109 91 98Secondary schoo lgross enrollment (male) 41 36 – 18 25 33Secondary school gross enrollment (female) 50 45 – 24 29 36Primary education completion rateb 31 28 – 12 21 30Public expenditure on education (% of GNP) 3.1 63 64d 72 – 67d

– – 6.4 –Primary pupil–teacher ratio 1995 28 37Expenditure per primary student (% of GNP 1980) 3.9 4.5Tertiary students in maths, science and engineering – 41.0

(% of tertiary students) 1994–97a

Notes:a Figures for 1994–97 (African Development Indicators 2002).b World Development Indicators 2003.c Human Development Report 2002.d Figures for 2001.

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both countries. The first two decades after independence seemed to havewitnessed a steady growth in access to education, after which the pat-tern of growth was seriously hampered by the socioeconomic circum-stances of the countries.

In Ghana, the primary school GER figures of 79 per cent for 1980 hasremained stagnant compared to the figures for 1994–7, while in Nigeria,the figures actually declined from 109 per cent to 98 per cent. In bothcountries there was a decline in enrolment from 1980 to 1990 by four and18 points for Ghana and Nigeria, respectively. In Nigeria, total enrolmentin primary education fell from a peak of 16.2 million pupils in 1994 to only14.1 million pupils in 1996. Nigeria performed poorly in terms of access toprimary school education compared with the SSA estimates and this can belinked to poor funding (FGN/UNICEF/UNESCO/UNDP 2000).

Although secondary school GER in Ghana is higher than in Nigeria, itwitnessed a decline from 1980 (41 per cent) to 1990 (36 per cent), as com-pared to Nigeria, which shows an increase in enrolment from 1980 (18 per cent) to 1997 (33 per cent). Some observations are noteworthy(UNICEF/FGN 2001). First, the transition rates from primary to secondaryschool declined from a peak of 53 per cent in 1992 to 44 per cent in 1994.This decline in secondary school enrolment is a reflection of the decline inprimary school enrolment. Second, as at 1996, there was a shortage ofplaces for primary six pupils moving into Junior Secondary 1 (JS1) classes,such that only 28 per cent gross intake rate was observed for that year.Third, the vocational versus academic dichotomy in opportunities pro-vided by secondary school education is not effective to equip pupil withskills for employment after junior or senior secondary education.

In Ghana, from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, access to tertiaryeducation decreased, mainly as a result of dwindling funding in relativeterms; universities could not admit more than 40 per cent of qualifiedapplicants due to the inadequacy of the infrastructure (WGESA 2000).Reforms were launched in 1991 with the major objective of expandingaccess, improving the quality of education and providing much-neededinfrastructure to support faster technological advancement through man-power development. Policy implementation was hindered by structuralconstraints, particularly regarding administrative capacity and resourceallocation (Girdwood 1999). However, the number of tertiary institu-tions has increased, and from 1993/94 to 2000/01 enrolment in teachertraining colleges increased by 13 per cent and in universities by 165 percent (Ministry of Education, Republic of Ghana 2002). Another majorfocus of tertiary education in Ghana is a shift towards strengthening thecapacity of polytechnics to produce Middle-level employees for the nation’s


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socioeconomic development. Currently, they are being empowered tointroduce postgraduate and Bachelor of Technology programmes.

Since independence, Nigeria has witnessed a rapid expansion of highereducation. At independence, there were two universities; by 1999, thenumber had increased to 37 public universities, with a student populationof 345,581, 41 polytechnics and colleges of technology with a total enrol-ment of 85,102 and 62 colleges of education with over 88,000 students.Several private universities have also been accredited. In general, admissioncriteria are tilted in favour of enrolment in Science and Technology courses,with a quota of 60:40 for Science and Arts courses. For the period 1994–7,41 per cent of total enrolment is in science-related subjects.

With the exception of South Africa, Nigeria has the largest and mostdiversified tertiary education sector in SSA. According to UNESCO (1999),with a GER of 6.1 per cent in 1998, Nigeria’s figure is about three timeshigher than the SSA average (2.3 per cent), but still lower than the averagesfor developing countries (9.6 per cent) and South Africa (15.9 per cent). Ingeneral, access to tertiary education in Nigeria is still inadequate. For exam-ple, in 2000 only about a quarter of the candidates who sat for the univer-sity entrance examination could be admitted (UNICEF/FGN 2001). Theconsequent stiff competition has led to sharp practices in admission pro-cedure. Although the country has witnessed a rapid growth in educationsince independence, the development impact of education on economicgrowth has remained unimpressive and this can be attributed to factorssuch as poor funding, a brain drain, an imbalance in education supplyand demand, the instability of education calendars and a poor quality ofeducation (Adedeji and Bamidele 2003).

In both countries, wide disparities in education outcomes are observed interms of geographical location and gender. In Ghana, the net enrolment fig-ures of pupils from rural areas compared with those from urban areas andthose from the south compared with the north were much lower. The UpperEast, Upper West and the Northern regions have the lowest median years ofeducation – ranging from 0.7 to 0.9 years and 0.6 to 0.7 years for men andwomen, respectively (DHS 1993). Females were disadvantaged relative tomales in that the enrolment figures were consistently lower irrespective ofgeographical area. Furthermore, children from very poor families were dis-advantaged compared to those from non-poor families. Although basic edu-cation is supposed to be free, an analysis of the period from 1987 to 1998showed that, in reality, education was not so perceived by parents who hadto pay textbook user fees, Parents’ Association dues, sports and culture fees.The introduction of these levies had serious implications for access to edu-cation at all levels – especially for the disadvantaged groups (UNU 1997).

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There are also wide disparities between Nigerian rural and urban areaswith access to education in rural areas much lower than in urban areas.Imbalances between the north and the south, with the north beingmarkedly more disadvantaged, are also observed. The 2003 NigeriaDemographic and Health Survey show that the northeast (68 per cent)and northwest (72.2 per cent) had the highest proportion of womenwithout education and the highest values of illiterate men (50.2 per centand 50 per cent, respectively). This difference already existed at the timeof independence because the starting point in terms of exposure to west-ern education between the north and south was as wide as 55 years inNigeria (Umo 1989). It must also be pointed out that these figures onlyreflect enrolment in formal schools offering western education and notIslamic education, which has lower levels of attendance.

Following the introduction of the nationwide UPE programme in 1976,while a threefold increase in primary school enrolment was observed by1982/83, disaggregation of the enrolment trends among states showed thatenrolment declined in nine states (only four were from the north/middlebelt) whereas enrolment increased in four states (including two from thenorth) and stagnated in three states (two from the north/middle belt)(Umo 1989). While the north–south divide in advantage still exists, pock-ets of educationally disadvantaged areas are not restricted to a south–northdivide but are found across the nation. Indeed, by the mid-1980s, anincreasing number of areas had not had adequate access to primary edu-cation. Even in the relatively favoured south there are areas with special

Table 5.2 Some indicators for education in Nigeria

Male Female

Selected indicators: (%) (%)Literacy rates in Nigeria 58 41Literacy rates in Northwest Nigeria (NW) 40 22Literacy rates in Northeast Nigeria (NE) 42 21Literacy rates in Southwest Nigeria (SW) 74 55Literacy rates in Southeast Nigeria (SE) 74 60Primary school net attendance ratio 57 53Primary school net attendance ratio (SW) 82 81Primary school net attendance ratio (SE) 81 78Primary school net attendance ratio (NW) 32 24Primary school net attendance ratio (NE) 41 37Primary school net attendance (urban) 74 70Primary school net attendance (rural) 52 47

Source: MICS 1999 (FOS/UNICEF 2000).

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problems (such as poor terrain – for example, creeks in the delta region).Such states, referred to as educationally disadvantaged states, are given spe-cial consideration in the quota for admission into federal secondary andtertiary educational institutions.

In 2000, literacy levels are lower for women than for men. Youthfemale literacy is, however, higher (93 per cent and 94 per cent), sug-gesting a gradual closing of the gap across generations. Gender disparityis wider in the north than in the south and females from the rural northare the most educationally disadvantaged. In Nigeria, for example, whiletwice as many males as females are literate in the northeast and north-west, the figures are closer in the south, the southeast showing more ofa gender balance than the southwest.

Quality of education

In a study of the learning achievement of primary four pupils in Nigeria,Falayajo et al. (1997) observed that majority of the pupils scored below apass score of 40 per cent in tests of numeracy, literacy and life skills.Furthermore, the performance of children in rural schools and publicschools was much poorer than for those in urban or private schools. Thedownward slide in the quality of education has also been observed in sec-ondary and tertiary levels of education. Ayodele (2001) compared the per-formance of secondary school students from Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leoneand the Gambia, in the English Language School Certificate Examinationconducted by the West African Examination Council examination. Findingsshowed that with outright failure rates as high as 85 per cent in some years,the performance level in the four countries between 1991 to 1996 wasnot impressive. Overall, poor infrastructure, inadequate number of qual-ified teachers, poor policy implementation and the financing of educationare characteristic of service provision in the education sector.

Generally, the pupil–teacher ratio is much higher in Nigeria than inGhana. For example, in 1995, the primary pupil–teacher ratio was 37 forNigeria and 28 for Ghana (World Bank 1998). The pupil–teacher ratio ishighest at the primary school level, in city schools and in the northernpart of the country. Comparable spatial trends are observed inpupil–teacher ratios in Nigeria. For example, there are very wide varia-tions across the country, with northern states such as Yobe, Borno,Kano, Benue and Jigawa recording ratios of 73:1, 55:1, 56:1, 46:1 and44:1, respectively (FGN/UNICEF/UNESCO/UNDP 2000). In addition,time series data also show a worsening in class sizes. In 1970 thepupil–teacher ratio was an average 33 for primary schools and 21 for sec-ondary schools. By 1995 it had worsened to 60 and 40 students per teacher

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for primary and secondary levels, respectively. The 2000 figures show aslight drop from the 1995 peak, but the figures are still unacceptablyhigh.

Other factors that led to the compromise of quality of education fromthe adjustment phase up until the present, include inadequate inspec-tion by the inspectorate department which was handicapped by poorfunding. At the tertiary levels, long periods of strikes occasioned by lateor non-payment of negotiated emoluments and poor funding of educa-tional institutions and student unrest have led to school closure for longperiods. This is further compounded by a lack of adequate statistics formore efficient planning. In Nigeria, although private schools were takenover by the government in 1972, in recent years, with increased liberal-ization, private involvement in education at all levels has resumed and ison the increase. In both countries private schools provide better servicebecause they are better equipped with learning facilities and have smallernumbers of classes. The result is a better outcome in terms of performanceand quality of education received.

5.5 Labour outcomes

Employment/unemployment

Statistics on employment in both countries are scarce and patchy. Byinternational standards, only those between the ages of 15 and 64 areconsidered to be potential members of the labour force. In both coun-tries, this group constitutes about half the population from 1980 to date,and also includes those who are relatively young (under 18 years), witha significant number still in secondary or tertiary institutions. In 1980,the labour force growth rate was slower than the population growth ratefor both countries. However, by 1999, although the labour force wasslightly slower, the gap had decreased. The labour force participationrate in terms of percentage of the population that are economically activeis relatively low, more so in Nigeria than in Ghana. In Ghana, the figurefor 1980 (47.4 per cent) is about the same as in 1999 (47.5 per cent).

In Nigeria, the picture of unemployment seems grim. Unemploymentrates in the 1960s (2 per cent) and 1970s (4.5 per cent) were far lower thanthe current trends. Table 5.3 shows that labour force participation witnesseda decrease from 41.5 per cent to 39.9 per cent in 1999. According to Yesufu(2000), in 1990 an estimated 29.77 million, representing (47 per cent) of theactive Nigerian labour force, were unemployed. By 2000, the figure hadrisen to 26.2 million, reflecting a 26 per cent increase over a nine-yearperiod. Participation rates for females are not comparable to those of males.

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165Table 5.3 Some selected labour indicators: Ghana and Nigeria

Labour indicators Ghana Nigeria

1980 1990 1999 1980 1990 1999

Age and structure of populationAge 0–14 years as % of the total population 45.0 43.5 46.1 44.5Age 15–64 years as % of total population 52.2 54.2 51.2 53.5Age 65� as % of total population 2.8 3.1 2.6 2.5Population – average annual growth rate (%) 3.3 2.7a 3.0 2.9a

Labour force – average annual growth rate (5) 3.1 2.7 2.6 2.8Labour force participation rate (% of population 47.4 46.6 47.5 41.5 40.0 39.9

of all ages in labour force – Totalb)47.9 47.1 24.1 29.7 28.0 14.3

Labour force participation rate (% of population 46.9 46.2 23.4 53.6 52.2 25.6of all ages in labour force – femaleb)

Labour force participation rate (% of population 66 64 52 43of all ages in labour force – Maleb)

57 55 57 44Industrial structure of economically active 12 12 10 9

population (% of population economically active)14 14 5 3

Agriculture (Males) 22 25 38 49Agriculture (Females) 29 31 38 53Industry (Males)Industry (Females)Services (Males)Services (Females)

Notes: a Figures spanning the period 1997–1999.b Figures represent percentage of the population within each sex and age group that participates in economic activities either employed orunemployed.Source: African Development Report, 1998; African Development Indicators, 2002.

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Although females constituted approximately 51.4 per cent of the totalpotential labour force as against males (48.6 per cent), male participationin gainful employment was significantly higher than that for females,being 62.6 per cent and 37.4 per cent, respectively. Moreover, the gendergap widened with increases in age. For those aged 15 to 24 years theaverage participation rates were about 56 per cent for males and 44 percent for females, but by 40 years and above the gap widened to about 66 per cent and 34 per cent, respectively.

According to the Ghana Living Standard Survey data, 18 per cent of the labour force were in paid employment in 1998/89, while theremaining 82 per cent were self-employed. About three-quarters of theformal wage workers were males, while women constituted about aquarter. Between 1980 and 1999, the agricultural sector declined slightlyin Ghana for both sexes and even more so in Nigeria. The proportion ofmales (66 per cent and 64 per cent) in the agricultural sector was higherthan for females in Ghana while in Nigeria the reverse was the case (Table5.3). The service sector also constitutes a growing economic sector inNigeria, with women having a higher representation. In both countries,industry has not grown remarkably between 1980 and 1999, and whilethe participation of males and females in Ghana are closer to equity, thoseof Nigeria reflect women being disadvantaged. It appears, however, thatthere tends to be an underreporting of women’s involvement in bothsectors.

The dependency burden, that is, the ratio of the population to thecorresponding number of employed persons, is very high in Nigeria(Yesufu 2000). An examination of the dependency ratio across the statesshowed very disparate and widely dispersed patterns. The highest stood at495 per 100 in Jigawa state and 227 per cent higher than in the lowest state,Ogun state with 218 per 100. The national dependency ratio was 334. Itwas observed that in order to reduce the dependency burden and improvenational income, more women should be empowered to contribute toproductive labour, while natality and population rates be reduced.

Canarajah and Thomas (1997) observed the mixed effect of education inGhana. On one hand, unemployment decreases with high education inthat 53.73 per cent of the active unemployed had middle school education,16.08 per cent had secondary school and 0 per cent had higher levels ofeducation. On the other hand, illiterates had one of the lowest unemploy-ment rates (0.78 per cent), yet employment is supposed to be increasingwith education. It appears that, being unskilled, illiterates do not haveunrealistic expectations of what is available in the job market and aretherefore inclined to accept available jobs, mostly in the informal sector.


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Boateng and Ofori-Sapong (2002) observed: (1) an oversupply of gradu-ate labour in the arts and humanities and an undersupply in areas likeengineering and medicine; (2) graduates prefer paid employment which74.4 per cent were employed in 1998/89; and (3) many employers areinterested in improved quality of graduates through the strengthening ofjob attachment programmes.

In a study of the employment status of University of Ibadan graduatesbetween 1950 and 1971, Okedara (1985) found that unemployment wasmore prevalent among graduates with arts or general degrees (as opposedto professional degrees), young graduates and those of southern origin(as opposed to northern origin). Further, unemployment was related to:(1) scarcity of wage employment as a result of the slow growth of mod-ern sector employment; (2) inadequate modernization of the agricul-tural sector; (3) use of the expatriate quota system; (4) continuous use ofcapital-intensive technologies in the modern sector; (5) state govern-ments’ policy of employing state indigenes; and (6) governments’ lackof positive employment policies. Although attempts have been made bygovernments to expand employment opportunities through variousemployment programmes, the problems still continue (Ojo and Lawanson2003). Currently, the unemployment problem in Nigeria includes, in addi-tion to the visible unemployed, an unquantified category of under-employed (Yesufu 2000).

Investment in human capital in the form of education and training canlead to economic growth because of its impact on labour productivity. Thegains can be maximized provided the appropriate type of education andtraining is given and fully utilized to increase the productive capacity of theeconomy (Adamu 2003). However, there is at present little coordinationbetween the manpower producers and the employers. Very little attentionhas been paid to vocational/technical education as there is a massive shiftand preference towards general education. This is because the former is per-ceived as a low-end profession with little opportunity for promotion andadvancement. Yet it is one area in which manpower is lacking and alsorequired for rapid technological development. In both countries, especiallyin Nigeria, there is a dilemma of unemployment and underemploymentcoexisting with a shortage of skilled and technical manpower. Therefore oneof the challenges is to enhance the output, quality and relevance of scien-tific and technical training.

Poor funding, poor equipment, and the incessant strikes of teachers,students and non-academic staff of the institutions over funding, salariesand conditions of learning and welfare, have negatively affected thequality of the output in the tertiary level. One major problem of graduate

Bola Udegbe 167

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unemployment also stems from institutional inadequacy in meeting theeducational needs of the country and the scarcity of trained personnelto equip students with the skills necessary to compete in the globaleconomy. Although the structure of the labour force from 1966/67 to1991 has changed remarkably in terms of high-level manpower, the pro-portion is still very inadequate. From 1987 to 1990 in Nigeria, the terti-ary graduate ratio was 0.3 per cent, compared to 9.4 per cent inindustrialized countries. In the same period, there were 0.9 (Nigeria) and1.5 (Ghana) scientists and technicians per 1,000 population, as againstan average of 81 such persons in the West (Human Development Report1993). Yet the need for the services of these professionals is greater in thedeveloping world. A high proportion of the few trained manpowerneeded to engineer the development in Ghana and Nigeria have beencompelled to export their skills particularly to developed countries. Theyare attracted to the West by better salaries and greater opportunities toutilize their skills, better infrastructure and equipment. The skilled per-sonnel caught up in the human capital flight are typically doctors,research scientists and university teachers (African Development Report1998). Thus, Ghana and Nigeria’s investment in education unintention-ally leads to strengthening of the workforce for the developed countries.

5.6 Conclusion

Four and a half decades after independence, Ghana and Nigeria still facechallenges of development. The survey of education and labour policiesand outcomes revealed wide variations within each country. Although thereare some differences between countries, to a considerable extent, similarpatterns in policy outcomes were observed. Policy processes and out-comes in the immediate post-independence era, despite its weaknesses,were to a significant extent developmental in ideology and structure,although this period of development was shorter in Ghana than in Nigeria.In Nigeria, the developmental states spanned both democratic and militaryregimes. However, by the mid-1980s economic and political crisies, coupledwith the adoption of structural adjustment, brought about mixed results ofseeming growth but with worsening social conditions of the masses. Theexperiences strengthen the need to explore alternate frameworks forachieving sustainable development by building on the past failures andsuccesses and achieving a system that is developmental, socially inclusiveand truly democratic.


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Bola Udegbe 169

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Canagarajah, S. and D. Muzumdar (1997) Employment, Labour Markets, and Povertyin Ghana: A Study of Changes during Economic Decline and Recovery. World BankPaper Series No. 1845.

Fafunwa, B.A. (1989) ‘National Policy on Education: A Planner’s Viewpoint’. InT.N. Tamuno and J.A. Atanda (eds), Nigeria Since Independence: The First 25 Years –Education, vol. III (Ibadan: Heinemann).

Falayajo, W., G.A.E. Makoju, D.C. Onugha Okebukola and J.O. Olubodun (1997)Achievement of Learning Achievement of Primary Four Pupils in Nigeria(Lagos/Abuja: Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN)/UNICEF/UNESCO/UNDP).

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6The Role of Social Policy inDevelopment: Health, Water andSanitation in East AfricaRosemary Atieno and Alfred Ouma Shem

171

6.1 Introduction

Social policy is defined as collective interventions directly affectingtransformation in social welfare, social institutions and social relations(Mkandawire 2001). In many sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries thenumber of people living below the poverty line has increased over thelast decade, while human development for many countries in the regionhas declined. In the East African region (Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania) theproportion of those living on less than US$1 a day was more than halfexcept in Uganda (World Bank 2001b). Thus the majority of the popula-tion in these countries are poor with low levels of access to basic healthcare, safe water sources and sanitation. According to the HumanDevelopment Report 2003, all three of the East African countries fallwithin the low human development category (Figure 6.1). WhileUganda and Tanzania have been on the low human development cate-gory, Uganda’s human development index (HDI) has been rising, from0.409 in 1998 to 0.489 in 2001, Tanzania’s HDI on the other hand showsa declining HDI. Although Kenya was within the medium human devel-opment category, this has since declined to 0.489 by 2001, which is inthe low human development category (UNDP 2003).

The overall human development status for two of the three countriesconsidered here has therefore been worsening, with a high level of humanpoverty, with observed increases in the number of people without accessto water and the number of people not expected to live beyond 40 yearsof age. These raise insights into the state of social policy in the countries.Uganda shows a mixed picture: improved HDI and a decline in the rateof poverty, on the one hand, and a decline in terms of the proportion ofthe population with access to water and in life expectancy rates, on the

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other. It is a mixed picture that calls for caution in how we define casesof ‘success’.

Human development involves the expansion of human capabilitiesand access to social, economic and political opportunities. The most basicof these capabilities are to lead long healthy lives, to be knowledgeableand to have access to the resources needed for decent standards of living.While human development measures progress in human capabilities,human poverty is the denial of opportunities most basic to humandevelopment, such as the ability to lead long healthy lives, to be know-ledgeable and to have a decent standard of living. Human poverty istherefore critical, resulting in malnutrition, poor maternal health, andillnesses from preventable diseases (UNDP 2002). The declining humandevelopment trends therefore means, among other things, an increasinginability to access the basic social services such as health, water and sani-tation, as Figures 6.2, 6.3 and 6.4 illustrate. The human poverty index(HPI) shows a rise for Kenya and Tanzania, while for Uganda the HPI isdecreasing. The same trend is observed for the number of people notexpected to live beyond their fortieth birthday. While Kenya and Tanzaniashow an increasing percentage of the population not expected to live upto 40 years, Uganda has a declining trend, but the figure remains above35 per cent.

These trends portray limited access to basic social services, which isone of the major manifestations of the problem of poverty and socialdeprivation. Another dimension of human deprivation is reflected in


Years

HD

I val

ues

Kenya Uganda Tanzania0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

1998 1999 2000 2001

Figure 6.1 Human Development Indices (HDI)

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the proportion of underweight children under the age of 5 years. Under-five mortality has increased from 89 per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 105per 1,000 live births in 1998, while access to safe drinking water standsat 53.7 per cent. The majority of Kenyans do not have access to safe sani-tation, with up to 65 per cent of the population using traditional pitlatrines (UNDP 2002).

The social sector in SSA has remained under great pressure for a numberof reasons, which include reductions in the expenditure on health (ECA

Rosemary Atieno and Alfred Ouma Shem 173

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

1998 1999 2000 2001

Years

HP

I val

ues

Kenya Uganda Tanzania

Figure 6.2 Human Poverty Index (HPI), 1998–2001

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

1998 1999 2000 2001

Years

Per

cent

age


Figure 6.3 People without access to safe water, 1998–2001 (percentage)

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1996). Civil conflicts, poor macroeconomic performance and structuralconstraints and institutional weaknesses, which inhibit supply responsein these countries, have also contributed to the decline of the social sec-tor. The existence of huge socioeconomic disparities is yet another rea-son for poor social sector performance in these countries (UNDP 2002).

The crisis in social sectors like health has become more intense withlack of hospital care and access to adequate sanitation and communityhealth services exposing many people to preventable diseases. The fail-ure to implement preventive healthcare programmes, and the lack ofsafe drinking water, which is an integral part of primary health care aremajor causes for death of under fives through diarrhoeal diseases (ECA1996). The result is low life expectancy and rising infant and maternalmortality (Figure 6.5). Kenya and Tanzania particularly show falling lifeexpectancies over the period.

Table 6.1 gives changes in the rates of infant mortality between 1991 and2001 for the three East African countries. Of the three countries it is onlyUganda that shows a drop in infant mortality over the period, while bothKenya and Tanzania show increases. Although these trends can be largelyattributed to the poor economic performance, social policies, if at all, seemto have been haphazardly implemented in these countries. The result is thatthe crisis in social development in Africa has persisted, and appears to havedeepened, cutting across different socioeconomic and political frameworks.

All of these factors have reinforced each other to reduce the access tobasic social services (BSS) for a majority of the population, bringing into


0

10

20

30

40

50

60

1998 1999 2000 2001

Years

Per

cent

age


Figure 6.4 People not expected to live beyond fortieth birthday (percentage)

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focus the role of social policy in access to BSS (World Bank 2001). Whatis the role of social policy in addressing access to basic social services likehealth, water and sanitation in these countries? This study seeks toimprove the understanding of social policy processes and outcomes inthe context of the three East African countries of Kenya, Uganda andTanzania in their post-independence period.

6.2 Research problem for East Africa

The need to address social policy in a development context arises from thefact that in most African countries, there has been a mismatch betweeneconomic growth and social development. Existing evidence shows thatsocial policy has an important role to play in the overall development ofa country, especially in the provision of basic social services. There has,


0

10

20

30

40

50

60

1998 1999 2000 2001

Years

Life

exp

ecta

ncy


Figure 6.5 Life expectancy trends, 1998–2001

Table 6.1 Infant mortality for Kenya,Uganda and Tanzania (1991 and 2001)

Country 1991 2001

Kenya 63 78Uganda 100 79Tanzania 102 104

Source: Global Human Development Report, 2002.

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however, been little empirical effort to identify this role and the factorslikely to constrain it, as well as its interaction with other forces.

A number of studies document the declining access to the basic socialservices by a majority of the population in the region. There is also evi-dence of the role played by different stakeholders in the provision ofthese services as an effort to bridge the gap between government provisionand their demand (Okello et al. 1998; Republic of Kenya 1997). What isunclear is the role of social policy in guiding the provision, availabilityand access to social services like water, health and sanitation. Also, whatis not clear is the economic, institutional, and social framework withinwhich these services are provided by the different players and theirinfluence on the outcomes. Another important issue is that althoughmacroeconomic indicators show national performance, the inherentnational disparities in welfare imply that these figures hide intra-national differences at the regional level.

The three East African countries have committed themselves to majorinternational development agreements related to social sector develop-ment. These include the Alma Ata declaration of 1978 on Primary HealthCare (PHC), the 20/20 compact adopted at the 1995 World Summit forSocial Development (WSSD) and the Millennium Development Goals(MDGs). Such commitment, however, contrasts with the declining per-formance of the social sector and access to social services by the major-ity of the population in these countries. The responses to the situationsin social services have been more of responses to social crises, ratherthan part of a long-term development policy. There is therefore a needfor an understanding of the conceptual framework and processes guid-ing these interventions, and hence the need to rethink the role of socialpolicy in development in the three East African countries.

In Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, the social sector has continued todisplay a downward trend in its performance. While this has largely beenattributed to the development policy adopted by these countries and itsimpact on social policy, the role of deliberate social policy processes isunclear. In Kenya, for instance, one of the major objectives for the coun-try since independence has been the reduction of poverty and inequality,to be achieved through high levels of economic growth. Major develop-ment efforts therefore initially focused on accelerating economic growthas a means of realizing development. This, however, has not translatedinto improved access to social services and improved welfare. It is there-fore relevant in this instance to explore the relationship between socialand economic policy, in terms of the provision and access to health,water and sanitation.


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Objectives

The main objective of this study was to explore the role of social policyin the social development of the East African countries of Kenya, Ugandaand Tanzania with specific reference to health, water and sanitation.

Specifically, the study had the following objectives:

1. To identify and discuss the main features and patterns of socialpolicy processes in the three East African countries of Kenya,Uganda and Tanzania in the post-colonial period.

2. To investigate the relationship between (existence of, or lack of)social policy processes and the macroeconomic framework andtheir outcomes in terms of availability of and access to health,water and sanitation in these countries.

3. To analyse the development of social policy processes within thedifferent phases of development, namely, the pre-adjustment,adjustment and the post-adjustment period of poverty reductionfocus.

4. To analyse the role of political, social and economic institutions inshaping social policy processes with respect to health water andsanitation.

5. To discuss the role of social policy in guiding the participation ofdifferent social agencies in the provision of social services in thesecountries.

6. To identify and analyse the regional and national patterns of socialpolicy processes and outcomes in the East African region.

6.3 Macroeconomic policy framework and social policyprocesses in East Africa

The macroeconomic framework is important for social policy imple-mentation and outcomes. The macroeconomic policy framework haschanged forms in the history of post-independence East Africa. In thecontext of this study, the different phases in terms of policy content andorientation can be grouped into pre-reforms, reforms and post-reformsperiods. In this section, we discuss the three macroeconomic policyframeworks that have influenced social policy in these countries.

Changing phases of macroeconomic policy in post-independenceEast Africa

The changing policy scenarios affected trends in economic performanceas reflected by the major economic indicators and hence the social policy


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outcomes. Table 6.2 shows trends in the major economic indicators forthe three countries from 1979 to 2000.

The pre-reforms period

This period covers the early 1960s, when the countries gained politicalindependence, to the early 1980s, when economic reforms began to beimplemented in most of Sub-Saharan Africa.


Table 6.2 Trends in selected macroeconomic indicators in the East Africancountries

Year Kenya Tanzania Uganda

GNP GDP at GDP at GNP GDP at GDP at GNP GDP at GDP at per current factor* per current factor* per current factor*capita market cost capita market cost capita market cost

prices prices prices

1979 390 6,079 5,315 4,246 3,363 1,434 2,8981980 450 7,266 5,612 4,771 3,474 1,245 2,7991981 440 6,853 5,824 5,508 3,516 1,337 2,9071982 390 6,438 5,912 5,783 3,519 2,176 3,1461983 340 5,985 5,989 5,778 3,487 2,240 3,3271984 310 6,194 6,094 5,213 3,505 180 3,586 3,3151985 300 6,132 6,356 5,996 3,645 200 3,519 3,2061986 340 7,239 6,812 4,285 3,849 260 3,925 3,2181987 370 7,974 7,217 3,004 4,087 330 6,283 3,3461988 410 8,518 7,665 5,100 4,329 420 6,509 3,6221989 400 8,342 8,024 4,420 4,493 430 5,252 3,8531990 370 8,531 8,360 190 4,259 4,808 340 4,304 4,1021991 340 8,043 8,481 180 4,957 4,908 260 3,322 4,3301992 330 8,001 8,413 170 4,601 4,936 200 2,858 4,4781993 250 4,978 8,443 170 4,258 4,996 190 3,220 4,8511994 240 7,149 8,665 160 4,511 5,074 200 3,997 5,1611995 260 9,047 9,047 160 5,255 5,255 250 5,756 5,7561996 320 92,576 9,422 190 6,496 5,494 290 6,050 6,2511997 350 10,612 9,617 210 7,684 5,687 320 6,296 6,5701998 350 11,443 9,773 240 8,589 5,917 310 6,777 6,8721999 360 10,527 9,900 260 8,763 6,197 320 6,407 7,4152000 360 10,356 9,876 280 9,028 6,513 310 6,170 7,741

Note: *GDP at factor cost at constant 1995 prices.GNP per capita in $US; GDP at factor cost in US $ Millions; GDP at current market prices arein US $ millions.Source: (1) African Development Bank: Selected Statistics on African Countries, 2002a, Vol.XXI; (2) African Development Bank: Gender, Poverty and Environment Indicators on AfricanCountries, 2002–03, vol. III.

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Tanzania

The post-colonial regime in Tanzania under the Tanganyika AfricanNational Union (TANU), which became Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) in1977, attempted to control the economy more completely than in anyof the other countries. Its governance style and economic interventions,as it preoccupied itself with the problems of ignorance, disease andpoverty, were uncommonly direct and comprehensive (Sarris and Vanden Brink 1994). Within the first decade after independence, in 1967,the then President Mwalimu Julius Nyerere introduced the ArushaDeclaration that established Ujamaa and villagization as the foundationof the country’s development strategy. It is commonly referred to asTanzania’s Socialism – with the proclaimed goals of equity, participationand self-reliance (Kulindwa 2001: 42). The strategy visualized the cre-ation of an agrarian society, which would ensure a modest, but securestandard of living for Tanzanians. The strategy was appropriate forTanzania since 90 per cent of the population lived in the rural areas andengaged mainly in agricultural activities. Thus in the country’s first five-year development plan 1964–9 agriculture became the sector spearhead-ing its national development strategy based on ‘Improvement andTransformation’. Under ‘Improvement’, the government was to play anactivist role in providing extension services, marketing and credit tosmallholders. Under ‘Transformation’, it would promote capital- andinput-intensive agriculture, by creating large-scale village settlementprograms (Kulindwa 2001: 44).

By 1976 compulsory villagization had moved over 50 per cent of thecountry’s population into Ujamaa villages (Kulindwa 2001: 45). Therationale behind this approach was that by concentrating people intocentral villages, economies of scale would be realized, improvements intechnical know-how would be shared more widely, credit would bemore widely available and centralized marketing would ensure theaccessibility of rural products to markets. In addition, the geographicalconcentration of people would enable the delivery of social services, likehealth, safe water and sanitation, to a greater number of people, whilealso reducing delivery costs.

This post-independent social and economic rationale ensured aneconomy that cut out private initiative. The state institutions managedall aspects of social, economic and political lives. Initially, the strategybore some success. It increased agricultural productivity by 4 per cent andgross domestic product (GDP) grew by more than 6 per cent annually(Kulindwa 2001: 44) and therefore attracted both domestic and inter-national support. Thus its preoccupation with the problems of ignorance,


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diseases and poverty paid, as positive trends emerged in improvementsin per capita income, access to education, health and other social ser-vices in the 1960s and 1970s.

Despite the initial success, in subsequent decades the system failed tosustain the improvements in welfare of the country’s poor. The country’sGDP declined continuously after 1975, declining in its GDP growth ratebetween 1981 and 1992 from 2 per cent to 0.6 per cent. Industrial outputcontracted by 20 per cent per year and agricultural production declinedsteadily during the 1980s (Sarris and Van den Brink 1994). The majorityof the population (60 per cent) lived below the poverty line and the coun-try had the second lowest GDP per capita in the world (World Bank1996). This implied a declining level of access to the basic social services.The failed policies of Ujamaa denied the economy its vigour after inde-pendence in 1961 and lessened policy makers’ ability to respond to suchadverse economic conditions. By 1980, 20 years after independence,Tanzania could not escape the need to engage in sweeping economicreforms, thus ushering in a new set of economic policies.

Kenya

Kenya’s post-colonial regimes, by contrast, have endeavoured to allevi-ate poverty, inequality and improve the standard of living of the peoplethrough the achievement of high rates of economic growth. This wasexpected to translate into high and growing per capita income that isequitably distributed among the population. The Sessional Paper No. 10of 1965 on African Socialism and its Application to Planning in Kenya wasone of the major documents that stressed this aspiration for high andgrowing per capita income as a means of poverty alleviation.

This approach yielded some success as the economy grew rapidly in thefirst decade after independence, achieving an average growth rate of 6.6per cent per annum. Per capita income grew by 2.6 per cent per annumduring this period. This impressive performance was, however, not sus-tained. In the 1970s, economic growth began to slow down, averaging5.2 per cent between 1974 and 1979. This decline continued graduallyinto the 1990s. Although high growth was achieved in the first decadeof independence, the twin problems of poverty and unemployment per-sisted while income inequalities widened (UNDP 2002). As a result theearly 1980s saw a change in strategy designed to achieve higher levels ofgrowth and development.

The government’s main preoccupation since independence with theprovision of basic needs as a way of fighting poverty, ignorance and dis-ease meant increased provision of basic social services like health, water


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and sanitation amongst others and increased equity in their distribu-tion. In the health sector, the government committed itself to the pro-vision of free health services as part of its development strategy.

Decentralization in development planning was introduced throughDistrict Focus for Rural Development (DFRD) in 1983 as a way of involv-ing stakeholders in planning and development, to encourage local ini-tiatives to complement the central government. The strategy was aimed atraising the incomes of the majority who live in the rural areas, and therebyreducing the levels of poverty. However, this strategy failed to stimulateeconomic growth. The poor and vulnerable, who were the target benefi-ciaries, were largely excluded from the project planning and implemen-tation stages.

Since the early 1980s, the country experienced steady declines in eco-nomic performance. The economy remained under stress for most of the1980s, with major macroeconomic indicators like investments, savingsand capital formation in the major sectors remaining stagnant. The declin-ing performance also led to reversals in the major gains made in the areasof health, water and sanitation. An important factor in the decline wasthe lack of deliberate policies aiming at the equitable distribution ofresources. Hence despite the rapid expansion in the social sector experi-enced in the first decade of independence, various constraints made itdifficult for the government to continue financing the increased demandin the sector. Inequalities had emerged in the expenditure and distribu-tion of facilities, which were all skewed against the poor. It thus becameclear that the country was experiencing structural problems that requiredadjustments in economic policy. All these led to the adoption of eco-nomic reforms aimed at reversing the trend and improving efficiency inthe economy.

Uganda

Like Tanzania and Kenya, Uganda also sought to fight poverty, inequal-ity, ignorance and disease immediately after independence. At inde-pendence its economy was promising, then growing at over 5 per centper annum. This prosperity was due to its sound macroeconomic pol-icies and the strength of its agricultural sector. A greater share of thegrowth in output from agriculture came from peasant farmers. Asiansdominated the industrial and commercial sectors. However, the econ-omy slumped drastically during the conflict period of 1965–86, whichsubjected Uganda to more rapidly changing administrative regimes thananywhere else in the region. Its first post-independence regime, between1962 and 1971 under Milton Obote, favoured the ideology of socialism,


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after the collapse of the monarchies in 1966–7 (Economic PolicyResearch Centre 2001: 4). It gave the government a leading rolein the development strategy. The regime encouraged majority stateownership of enterprises, and therefore, it also became the main providerof BSS.

The political regime of 1971–9 demolished this strategy, assigning thegovernment a lesser role in its development strategy in favour of the pri-vate sector. The situation deteriorated following the expulsion of theAsians because there was a lack of local expertise to replace them. Theconflicts continued during which no serious thought went to good macro-economic management since most of the expenditures incurred financedthe various conflicts. During the entire conflict period GDP grew at anaverage of 0.8 per cent. Beyond 1986 onwards, however, Uganda hasenjoyed relative peace, which, together with improved macroeconomicmanagement, has seen its economy pick up and accessibility to basicsocial services improved. Uganda joined the Alma Ata declaration andadopted the provision of primary health care as the official health pol-icy. The civil strife that broke out however led to the breakdown of thehealth structure.

The reforms period

This period covers from the early 1980s, when the International MonetaryFund (IMF) and World Bank-induced Stabilisation and StructuralAdjustment Programmes (SAPs) began to be implemented in the region.In the context of this section reforms refer to significant changes in anumber of economic policies as part of a structured package of policies,rather than ad hoc changes. They involved fundamental changes withrespect to the extent of state intervention, reliance on market forces,institutional and administrative changes and the removal or relaxationof government controls.

The policy reforms were meant to pull the countries’ economies out ofthe period of stagnation and place them once again on the path of renewedeconomic growth and improved standards of living.

Kenya

By the mid-1980s, it had become clear that structural constraints hademerged within the economy that were preventing it from achievinghigh growth rates and improved welfare. This led the government toadopt SAPs in the context of wider economic reforms. The implementa-tion of the reforms began in the early 1980s at a rather slow pace, butgained momentum in the mid-1980s. Kenya’s experience with SAPs can


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be categorized into three phases: namely, 1980–4 which marked a slowstart and non-compliance with the reforms; 1985–91, which was markedby poor implementation of the agreed reforms; and 1992–5, the periodduring which SAPs were rapidly implemented (Ikiara and Ndung’u 1999:74–7). However, in the first phase the government faulted in honouringsome of the loaning conditions and the disbursement was delayed. Thus,in order to pave the way for a structural adjustment loan (SAL) the gov-ernment published the Sessional Paper No. 4 of 1980 on EconomicPolicies and Prospects that comprised policies on how to deal with theeconomic crisis that were in line with IMF and World Bank recommen-dations. The paper served as the basis for the first SAL agreed upon withthe World Bank in March 1980. A second stand-by agreement was signedin October 1980 and these developments marked the beginning of SAPsin Kenya.

During the period 1985–91 considerable official acceptance of thereforms was displayed, particularly following the publication of SessionalPaper No. 1 of 1986 on Economic Management for Renewed Growth. Despitethe fact that the implementation of the agreed reforms remained poor,significant efforts were made to introduce sectoral reforms in agricul-ture, trade and industry, education, health, parastatals, foreign exchangemarkets and the financial sector (Ikiara and Ndung’u 1999: 76). The firstsectoral credit to Kenya was approved in June 1996 – a quick-disbursingsectoral adjustment credit (ASAL-1). A new stand-by agreement with theIMF and a three-year Structural Adjustment Facility, together with theInternational Development Association (IDA) and other donors, wassigned in 1988 to support the country’s stabilization programme. Theprogramme was replaced by a three-year (1989–91) Enhanced StructuralAdjustment Facility (ESAF) in May 1989.

In 1991, the quick-disbursing aid was suspended due to poor imple-mentation of the reforms, rising levels of corruption, failure to correctmacroeconomic imbalances resulting from fiscal indiscipline, slow reformsin the civil service and the privatization of public enterprises, lack ofaccountability in public enterprises, failure to support private sectordevelopment and the slow pace of political reforms (Ikiara and Ndung’u1999: 78). These became the new conditions to be met before aid couldbe resumed. In 1993, Kenya applied for a one-year agreement underESAF and was accepted by the IMF to be provided in two equal instal-ments with the conditions to put more effective controls on fiscal deficitand government borrowing from the central bank and set limits on andobserve its net international reserves. However, by the end of 1995, Kenyahad implemented major political and economic reforms agreed upon,


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which included the removal of virtually all price and foreign exchangecontrols, liberalization of domestic markets, import liberalization,reducing the budget deficit, financial reform, privatization, removal ofwage guidelines and other labour market reforms and liberalization ofthe exchange market.

Economic decline, however, continued, as evidenced by falling GDPgrowth rates from 4.3 per cent in 1990 to 2.3 per cent, 0.5 per cent and0.2 per cent in 1991, 1992 and 1993, respectively (Republic of Kenya1997–2001: 4). The per capita income growth rate also declined to anaverage of 0.3 per cent between 1990 and 1995. The implementation ofSAPs also derailed the government from its earlier sustained efforts inthe provision of BSS. In particular, the policies introduced during thisperiod exposed the poor to severe socioeconomic risks as most BSSbecame unaffordable with cost sharing as government expenditure inthe social sector was reduced.

The worsening economic scenario called for a shift in strategy to cush-ion the most vulnerable – the poor – in society. This formed the basisfor the next series of government policy pronouncements such as theNational Poverty Eradication Plan (NPEP) and the Poverty Reduction StrategyPaper (PRSP) 2001–2004. The new policy thinking deviated from SAPsbecause they considered development not only as comprising growth inincome, but also improvements in the human condition.

Tanzania

In Tanzania economic reforms began in the mid-1980s, after some ini-tial strong resistance to their implementation by policy makers. Due tothe resistance to SAPs, in 1981 the government tried a local economicreform programme dubbed the National Economic Survival Programme,which failed to resolve the various socioeconomic problems. This, togetherwith continued resistance to SAPs, obliged the government to start amore serious economic programme in 1982, which sought to reign in bur-geoning government deficits and improve the performance of paras-tatals. However, this too proved inadequate to resolve the country’smounting economic problems. Rising inflation, falling hard currencyrevenue, worsening poverty, and so on, intensified the economic prob-lems, leaving the government with no room but to seek agreement withthe World Bank in 1986 (Kulindwa 2001: 42).

In 1986, due to the economic crisis it then faced, the Tanzanian gov-ernment entered into an agreement with the IMF. The Economic RecoveryPlan that resulted from this emphasized currency devaluation and tradeliberalization as the initial steps to open up the economy to foreign


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investment. The stabilization plan was followed by a second phase ofadjustment under a World Bank programme termed Economic StructuralAdjustment Program (ESAP), which targeted the liberalization of foreigninvestment regulations and deepening reforms in the agricultural sectorwhile also addressing the social costs of adjustment. Tanzania’s thirdadjustment programme, the Rolling Plan and Forward Budget of 1993, pri-oritized reforming the civil service and privatizing the public sector.

The initial Economic Recovery Plan strongly advocated currency devalu-ation and trade liberalization as the first measures to open the economyto foreign investments. Several years later, these were followed by a sec-ond phase of the adjustment process called the economic and socialadjustment programme (ESAP), which focused attention on liberalizingforeign investment regulations and entrenching reforms in the agricul-tural sector as they also address social costs associated with them.Reforms in the agricultural sector were crucial given the dependence ofthe majority on it and contributing almost half of the country’s GDP.Structural changes in this sector would determine the success of SAPs ingeneral in the economy. The reforms sought, therefore, to eradicate offi-cial control of production and marketing of produce in order to motiv-ate private initiative, encourage smallholders, and attract national andinternational investment into medium- and large-scale commercial agri-culture. The adjustment’s third phase, termed the rolling plan and for-ward budget of 1993, prioritized civil service reform and the privatizationof the public sector. 50,000 civil servants were re-trenched between 1993and 1995 and the privatization of more than 400 parastatals started(Kulindwa 2001: 49).

However, despite these adjustment programmes designed to reversethe economic downturn, SAPs were further impoverishing and margin-alizing the majority of the people in Tanzania. Cost-sharing measuresintroduced in the acquisition of various social services like education,health, and so on, the removal of subsidies, and retrenchment of civilservants prevented many from obtaining these services and the majorityslipped deeper into poverty, bringing to the fore the question of povertyalleviation as a social policy in the early 1990s.

Uganda

Uganda, on the other hand, began serious economic reforms in the late1980s. The reforms undertaken included macroeconomic reforms to stabilize the economy, like fiscal, monetary and exchange rate reforms;liberalization policies aimed at structural reforms and growth and includedremoving relative price distortions and curtailing government intervention.


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In addition, import restrictions, high import tariffs, exchange controlregulations and export tax were also either removed or relaxed(Economic Policy Research Centre 2001). In total, seven major SAPshave been undertaken since 1987. They included the Economic RecoveryProgramme (ERP) supported by the First and Second Economic RecoveryCredit (ERC I and ERC II) of the World Bank; the First and SecondStructural Adjustment Credit (SAC I and SAC II) and the Third StructuralAdjustment Credit (SAC III). Other programmes included the AgriculturalSector Adjustment Credit (ASAC) and the Programme for Alleviation ofPoverty and Social Costs of Adjustment (PAPSCA) (Economic PolicyResearch Centre 2001).

The stagnation in economic performance resulted in serious social andeconomic problems as it eroded the earlier gains already made in theprovision of BSS. The strategy to come out of this mess changed drastic-ally with the government designed to play a minor role but with the freemarket and the private sector in the driver’s seat to reverse the situation.

These policies were adopted as a response to the macroeconomic imbal-ances that arose from overspending, the price shocks of major exportcommodities and the oil price shocks of the 1970s that left the countryin an increasingly vulnerable economic position. SAPs, nevertheless,have to a large extent improved trade liberalization and addressed somemacroeconomic distortions such as budgetary deficits, balance of pay-ments problems, etc., although Uganda remains donor-dependent, withpersistent trade deficit.

However, despite the progress made in economic stabilization andstructural reforms in the late 1980s, their implementation has raisedconcern over the provision of BSS to the poor. Whereas national spendingon BSS, particularly in the areas of education and health, have remainedlargely unchanged (Economic Policy Research Centre 2001: 8), when thefigures are disaggregated by level of income, significant trends emerge.The government had introduced, for example, user fees since 1988 as amethod of cost recovery for recurrent costs of health care, but was stillresponsible for financing a large share of the health care budget (Okelloet al. 1998: 14). The removal of subsidies, introduction of user fees, andso on, as advocated for under SAPs, meant that the poor had experi-enced a noticeable decline in the ability to pay for BSS, resulting in adecline of their use and, therefore, worsening poverty levels. Thus againin Uganda, SAPs instead of improving the livelihoods of the people,worsened them.

It is therefore evident that despite the enormous efforts invested inthe implementation of SAPs by these countries, the results were less


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than encouraging because they impoverished the majority of the people.Poverty levels increased and with the reduction in government expend-iture access to BSS declined further. Consequently the focus on eco-nomic reforms turned from SAPs to poverty alleviation, which currentlycharacterizes major policy undertakings in the region.

Post-reforms period

This section covers the post-SAPs period and the inception of PovertyReduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) to date when different approaches toimprove the economic and social condition of the poor began to be ini-tiated in the region. The failure of SAPs to improve the human conditionas anticipated through better living standards and high incomes fairlydistributed changed the focus of development strategy to target povertyalleviation.

Kenya

In the recent past, government strategies and priorities on socio-economic development have reflected a shift to a strategic focus onpoverty. Kenya’s PRSP 2001–2004 has the broad twin objectives ofachieving both high economic growth and poverty reduction. The PRSPidentifies strategies that comprise priority activities consistent with thefulfilment of the two broad objectives. The priorities are targeted forimplementation under a three-year macroeconomic policy frameworkcrucial for the formation of pro-poor and pro-growth medium-term expen-diture framework (MTEF) budget.

In the health sector, the objective is to attain equity, quality, accessi-bility and affordability of health services through better targeting of thescarce resources to the poor. The aim is to shift health resources fromcurative services to preventive/promotive/rural health care (Republicof Kenya 2001: 47). The current government policy with respect tohealth is stipulated in the 1994 Kenya Health Policy Framework, whichforms the agenda for health sector reforms, and seek to reduce the dis-parities in the health status of the population by increasing access to allhealth services. The government further recognizes that its capacity asthe principal health provider is limited and therefore needs to enhancethe participation of the private sector and other stakeholders (Republic ofKenya 1997).

The public expenditure review (PER) attempts to evaluate the provi-sions of the health sector in the context of the PRSP/MTEF (Republic ofKenya 2003). It is based on the premise that health services rank amongthe top basic social services essential for improving the quality of life,


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especially among the poor, in addition to safe water and basic education.For the poor, the most important asset they have is their labour, whosequality depends upon their health status. The PRSP recognizes thataffordable health care that is easily accessible to all is crucial. Prevailingtrends, however, show a decline in major health indicators, with a result-ant increase in overall mortality, child and maternal mortality and fallinglife expectancy. The government, under the PRSP/MTEF budgetary sys-tem, has outlined key priorities to reverse the trend. These include ruralhealth, preventive and promotive health services (Republic of Kenya2003). A major observation of the PER is that despite government policypronouncements, resource allocation has not always been consistentwith policy priorities, with preventive and promotive health care takingthe lowest share of the government expenditure. There is therefore aclear dichotomy between policy priorities and objectives, on one hand,and the actual implementation, on the other.

Water as a basic necessity has either been provided free or heavily subsi-dized, but the continuation of this policy has not been easy – culminatingin the majority lacking access to safe water. Access to clean water and safesanitation reflects poverty status and locality in Kenya. Two-thirds ofthe poor have no access to clean drinking water and 72.2 per cent ofthem are without access to safe sanitation (Republic of Kenya 2001: 17).There is therefore need to emphasize the implementation of such policies.

Uganda

Uganda’s PRSP acknowledges the importance of economic growth andincome distribution (Uganda PRSP 2000). It strategizes to promote pro-poor growth by increasing the assets of the poorest, through enhancededucation, better health, clean water and good sanitary facilities. TheUganda Health Sector Strategic Plan (HSSP) 20010/01–2004/05 also aimsto improve the access of the population to a minimum health care package(Uganda National Minimum Health Care Package), with special atten-tion to improving access to the poor, and generally the vulnerable groups.It further targets the rehabilitation and improvement in the functioningof the health facilities formerly underutilized and the construction ofnew ones to the previously unserved regions. It is concerned also withmobilizing community empowerment, participation in the managementand moni-toring of health facilities (Okello et al. 1998).

The government has further initiated environmental health pro-grammes to tackle issues of access to safe water provision and waste dis-posal at the household and institutional levels in both rural and urbanareas. The programmes provide health services that aim to alleviate poor


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sanitation and increase the percentage of the population with access tolatrines and clean water. Uganda’s MTEF focuses too on pro-poor budget-ing while its Poverty Action Fund reallocates expenditure resourcesdirectly to poverty reducing services.

The Uganda Economic Survey for 2003 states the challenge in this areaas being to provide health care to all average citizens, based on the esti-mation that up to 60 per cent of Ugandans do not have access to basichealth care while only 40 per cent of the population have access toessential drugs. The main objectives therefore are to cut down infantmortality and reduce maternal mortality.

Tanzania

Tanzania’s PRSP (2002) shows, for instance, that 68 per cent of the urbanpopulation have access to piped water and less than half of them obtain24-hour service, whereas in rural areas 45 per cent of the population haveaccess to a safe water source, but nearly 30 per cent of the facilities mal-function. About 53 per cent of the population use unprotected watersources. These people are more likely to be poorer than those with accessto piped water outside their houses. The government has thereforeplaced a particular emphasis on reducing morbidity, improving nutri-tion and strengthening access to health services and safe water as a wayof increasing people’s productive life. The government further intendsto pursue policies and programmes that will reduce the under-five mor-tality rate from 158 to 127 per 1,000 by 2005; to reduce the maternalmortality rate from 529 to 450 per 100,000 by end of 2003; increase theproportion of the population with access to safe water from 48.5 percent in 2000 to 55 per cent by end of 2003.

In pursuit of these goals, the government has prioritized quality healthservices through personnel training; promote and coordinate the privatesector and civil society activities in the health sector; rehabilitate mal-functioning water supply schemes, protect water sources and create newschemes; promote public HIV/AIDS health awareness; and raise the pro-portion of the rural population with access to safe and clean water. Theseactions have enhanced the majority’s ability to access these services.

Effect of macroeconomic policy frameworks on health, water andsanitation

The changes in economic policy that have occurred in the region sinceindependence have had major effects on the provision of health, waterand sanitation. Prior to the implementation of SAPs in these countries,the governments played a significant role in the process of economic


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development and by extension in the provision of BSS. During this period,significant achievements were made in the health sector, reflected inmajor indicators like falling under-five and maternal mortality rates andincreased life expectancy across the countries (Table 6.3).

Improvements made in health care are clearly evident in falling under-five mortality rates from 98 to 81 per 1,000 live births between 1970 and1980 and falling infant mortality rates from 108 to 79 per 1,000 live birthsbetween 1970 and 1985 in Kenya. The same scenario holds for Tanzania assignificant improvements were made in reducing both infant and maternalmortality rates, with under-five mortality rates falling from 125 to 98 per1,000 live births between 1970 and 1980 and the infant mortality ratedropped from 129 to 95 per 1000 live births between 1970 and 1985. Itsmaternal deaths were much lower, at 340 per 100,000 live births in 1985compared to the following periods. For Uganda, the infant mortality ratefell from 126 to 122 per 1,000 live births but the under-five mortality rateincreased marginally, while even much lower maternal deaths at 300 per100,000 live births was observed compared to subsequent periods.

Access to safe water remained low (below 30 per cent across all thethree countries) before the reforms (between 1970 and 1974). However,efforts made by the governments in the provision of safe water and sani-tation prior to reforms resulted in marked improvements in access tosafe water between 1985 and 1989 for all the countries except forUganda (Table 6.4). The distribution of access to social services betweenurban and rural areas however remained extremely unequal.

It is evident that the reforms reduced accessibility for majority of thepopulation to health care reflected in increased under-five mortalityrates between 1980 and 1990, and a marked rise in maternal deaths from1985 to 1990 for all three East African countries, as shown in Table 6.3.


Table 6.3 Selected social policy indicators for health in East Africa

Country Under-five mortality rate Infant mortality rate Maternal mortality per 1,000 live births per 1,000 live births rate per 100,000

live births

1970 1980 1990 2000 1970 1985 1990 2000 1985 1990 1996

Kenya 98 81 94 96 108 79 71 61 510 650 590Tanzania 125 98 132 107 129 95 89 76 340 770 530Uganda 116 118 187 147 126 122 121 99 300 1200 510

Sources: African Development Bank, Selected Statistics on African Countries, 2002, vol. XXI;African Development Bank Gender, Poverty and Environment Indicators on African Countries,2002–03, vol. III.

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Table 6.4 Access to safe water and sanitation in East Africa

Country Area Access to safe water Access to safe sanitation (% of total population) (% of total population)

1970–74 1985–89 1994 2000 1985–89 1994 2000

Kenya Total 15 27 54 49 44 77 86Urban 100 61 67 87 75 69 96Rural 2 21 43 31 — — —

Tanzania Total 12 52 49 54 — 86 90Urban 61 80 65 80 90 97 98Rural 9 47 45 42 — — —

Uganda Total 22 16 34 50 13 57 75Urban 88 12 47 72 40 75 96Rural 17 45 32 46 — — —

Source: African Development Bank, Selected Statistics on African Countries, 2002, vol. XXI;African Development Bank, Gender, Poverty and Environment Indicators on African Countries,2002–03, vol. III.

Access to safe water and sanitation, however, improved although largelyin the urban areas leaving rural areas seriously underserved particularlyfor sanitation where the inequality was greater.

The reforms became unsustainable with the emerging developmentstrategy having a strategic focus on poverty alleviation. The new strategyhas an embodied democratic process involving the spirit of participa-tion and wide consultations with key stakeholders like the government,civil society, development partners and the poor themselves, in seekingout the best development strategy to address the problem of poverty.Although these efforts have only recently intensified, indications thatthey would yield improved livelihoods began to emerge in the late1990s. The current development strategy has therefore great potential inexpanding the reach of the majority to BSS and consequently improvingtheir livelihoods.

6.4 Explaining social sector performance in East Africa

The developments in the social sector, with respect to health, water andsanitation, can be seen as an outcome of – or response to – differentforces, both internal and external. Major among these are poverty,inequality, economic performance and declining government expend-iture in basic social services reflecting government macroeconomic policy.The commitment to international conventions with respect to the attain-ment of specific levels of basic social services has also been important.

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Poverty, inequality and economic performance

Inequality in incomes and access to resources is important since it influ-ences social and economic outcomes and access to social goods and ser-vices. Unequal income distribution is undesirable since it worsens thepoor’s access to services and their benefits from any positive develop-ment. Inequalities in economic indicators have therefore translated tosimilar inequalities with respect to social well-being.

In Kenya, inequalities in income are high, with the bottom 20 percent earning 2.5 per cent of the total income while the top 20 per centearn 59 per cent of the total income. In Uganda, access to health hasbeen poor, with only 46 per cent of the population being within five kilo-metres of a health facility, while 44 per cent of the population is below thepoverty line. In Tanzania, 35.7 per cent of the population are below thepoverty line (UNDP 2004). The three East African countries display highincome inequalities with higher gini coefficients than other countries inthe region (Table 6.5). Kenya leads with the highest gini coefficient of0.444, followed by Uganda at 0.392 and Tanzania with 0.382. The sameinequality is reflected in the share in total income by population deciles.

Such disparities affect people’s access to social services. With the reduc-tion of government expenditure and introduction of cost sharing in thesocial sector, the declining and unequal per capita incomes has meantthat a majority of the population cannot access these services.

Commitment to international conventions on health,water and sanitation

International developments like commitments to international conven-tions have, to some extent, shaped social policy processes in these


Table 6.5 Gini coefficients of East African countries

Gini coefficient Share in total income

Bottom 10% Top 10%

Uganda 0.392 2.6 31.2Ghana 0.327 3.6 26.1Côte d’Ivoire 0.367 3.1 28.8Tanzania 0.382 2.8 30.1Kenya 0.445 1.8 34.9Zimbabwe 0.568 1.8 46.9

Source: UNDP 2002.

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countries. The East African countries are members of a number of inter-national organizations, and are party to many international conven-tions. In this section, we look at some of the international conventionson health, water and sanitation and their effect on the countries’ socialpolicy.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

The MDGs place human well-being at the centre of global developmentobjectives and are benchmarks for progress towards a vision of develop-ment, peace, and human rights. The MDGs 4–6 require a dramatic increasein the level of access to health care. The East African countries havecommitted themselves to the achievement of the MDGs.

The health systems in these countries are seriously underfunded formeeting the goals. While no high-income OECD country spends lessthan 5 per cent of GDP on public health services, most developing coun-tries spend between 2 and 3 per cent on public health. The healthexpenditure as percentage of the GDP is 2.4 per cent for Kenya, 1.6 percent for Uganda and 2.2 per cent for Tanzania (UNDP 2003). With smalland inadequate budgets, poor people lose out. Rural–urban disparitiesare another indicator of unequal spending, with rural areas havingmuch lower levels of expenditure. In Kenya, health expenditure isskewed against the poor. Health expenditure for rural areas account for30 per cent, while urban areas, where only 20 per cent of the populationlive, account for 70 per cent of the total health expenditure (Republic ofKenya 1997).

MDG 7, which aims to halve the proportion of people without accessto safe drinking water and improved sanitation requires an integratedapproach. Without sanitation, safe water is not as useful for health.Water, health and sanitation therefore need to be integrated. Governmentsshould ensure that poor people’s access to water and sanitation servicesare not undermined by charges that subsidize the non-poor.

A number of challenges still remain in alleviating the constraintsfaced in the achievement of the MDGs. Addressing inequity is crucial toachieving the MDGs. Small health budgets need to be shared among thedifferent users and services in order to benefit the poor. In Kenya, thepoorest 20 per cent of the population receive 22 per cent of the govern-ment spending on primary health care, compared to 14 per cent of totalhealth spending. This means that if the poor are to benefit from healthspending, more resources need to be directed to primary health care. Theachievement of the MDGs is therefore a prerequisite for social sectorpolicies in these countries.


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Commitment to the declarations of the World Summit for SocialDevelopment (WSSD)

Since independence, Kenya has been committed to the elimination ofpoverty, disease and ignorance among the people and has continued topromote access to modern health care as pronounced in various policydocuments. The government subscribed early and readily to the aim ofhealth for all by the year 2000, which sought to enhance access by allKenyans to health care services. The aim was to provide free health careand locate a health facility within 10 km reach of each citizen. In linewith the WSSD commitments, the government designed a package ofprogrammes targeting the poor (Republic of Kenya 2000).

The 20/20 initiative adopted at the 1995 WSSD committed govern-ments and donors to allocate at least 20 per cent of their budgets and aidflows to the provision of BSS. The idea originated from the WorldSummit for Children in 1990, which presented evidence that socialspending on health plays an important catalytic role in economicgrowth and development. The challenge for development thereforebecomes one of creating a healthy and educated society in which peopleare free to participate in economic social and political decision making.This leads to development through the ability to live long, healthy andproductive lives. Governments that embrace this concept must rethinktheir development objectives, strategies and priorities. At the nationallevel, government budgets should be reoriented towards more product-ive allocations for basic social services.

An important observation, however, is that despite the three countriescommitting themselves to these international conventions, there is stilldeclining performance of the social sector. Such commitments thereforeneed to be accompanied by practical measures aimed at improving themobilization, allocation and management of resources if the social sectoris to improve.

6.5 Conclusion: emerging patterns and major players inhealth, water and sanitation

The pattern emerging with respect to social policy processes and out-comes is that the government is central to the provision of social ser-vices. From independence up to the time SAPs were implemented, thegovernment played a dominant role in providing BSS with significantachievements realized. With a changing macroeconomic framework,strategies had to change advocating an expanded role for the private sec-tor and gradual withdrawal of the government.


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The roles played by the different stakeholders have therefore changed.The development of the social sector is no longer the prerogative of thegovernment. Other development players shape its outcomes, dependingon the policy framework undertaken by the government. These playersinclude the international development partners, the civil society, thecommunities and the private sector. Therefore while the governmenthas to provide the facilitating policy environment, the response of otherplayers to such policies is crucial to realizing the goals of social policy.State withdrawal, however, continued without a critical analysis of thecapacity and coverage of the non-state service providers. The infrastruc-ture and the institutional framework to replace the state were lacking.

Most of the emerging providers use both state infrastructure and per-sonnel to provide their services. However, these linkages occur at bothindividual and sector levels with hardly any coordination. This hasresulted in duplication and an inability to replicate good service provi-sion strategies. In some cases, this approach has created friction betweennon-state and state providers, while in others there have been frictionsbetween state departments and ministries (UNDP 2003).

The problem of access to health, water and sanitation therefore stillremains. Hence while the objectives of improving the welfare of thepopulation still remains fundamental, the strategies to achieve theseobjectives need to change, together with the relative role of differentplayers. The secular decline in government expenditure on health affectedthe public sector’s ability to meet the increasing demand for services,thereby defining a role for the market in allocation of social services andhence the private sector.

The social sector has expanded to include different players. What iscritical, however, is the need for a social policy framework to guide theparticipation and contribution of these different players. The right to aminimum health care package, to clean water and safe sanitation asenshrined in various international conventions and adopted by the EastAfrica countries can only be achieved through a coordinated effort facili-tated by a strong national framework of social policy.

It is also becoming clear that service provision cannot be limited to aparticular provider, since efficient provision of services for the majorityof the population depends on collective action or a partnership approachby the state, civil society, and the private sector. Although state provi-sion has not matched the expectations of citizens, the growing provi-sion from other systems of delivery does not necessarily reflect acollapse of state provision (Wunsch and Olowu 1990). The state is amajor provider of services, and the only provider that can claim total


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country coverage, albeit in an uncoordinated, incomprehensive andinefficient manner.

References

African Development Bank (2002a) Selected Statistics on African Countries 2002,vol. XXI (Statistics Division, Development Research Department, ADB).

African Development Bank (2002b) Gender, Poverty and Environment Indicators onAfrican Countries 2002–03, vol. III (Statistics Division, Development ResearchDepartment, ADB).

Central Bureau of Statistics (1996) The Welfare Monitoring Survey II, 1994 basicreport (Nairobi: Central Bureau of Statistics).

Economic Policy Research Centre (2001) Review of the Trade Policy Regime andPolicy Making Process in Uganda (Kampala: Makerere University).

ECA (Economic Commission for Africa) (1996) The Economic and Social Survey ofAfrica (Addis Ababa: ECA).

Ikiara, G.K. and S.N. Ndung’u (1999) ‘Kenya’. In W. Van der Geest and R. Van derHoeven (eds), Adjustment, Employment and Missing Institutions in Africa (Geneva:International Labour Office).

Kulindwa, K. (2001) ‘Tanzania’. In D. Reed (ed.), Economic Change, Governance andNatural Resource Wealth: The Political Economy of Change in Southern Africa(London: Earthscan Publications Ltd.), pp. 41–67.


Mwabu, G. and J. Wamg’ombe (1995) User Charges in Kenya Health Services PricingReform: 1989–1993. International Health Policy Programme, Working Paper,February.

Okello, D.O.R., D. Guwatudde Lubanga, and A. Sebina-Zziwa (1998) ‘The Challengeto Restoring Basic Health Care in Uganda’, Social Science and Medicine, 46(1),13–21.

Republic of Kenya (1965) Sessional Paper No. 10 of 1965 on African Socialism and ItsApplication to Planning in Kenya (Nairobi: Government Printers).

Republic of Kenya (1980) Sessional Paper No. 4 of 1980 on Economic Policies andProspects (Nairobi: Government Printers).

Republic of Kenya (1986) Sessional Paper No. 1 of 1986 on Economic Management forRenewed Growth (Nairobi: Government Printers).

Republic of Kenya (1997) National Development Plan 1997–2001 (Nairobi:Government Printers).

Republic of Kenya (2000) Progress Made by Kenya since 1995 World Summit forSocial Development. Position Paper presented at the UN General Assembly 24thspecial session: WSSD and Beyond, Geneva, 26–30 June 2000.

Republic of Kenya (2001) Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) 2001–2004 (Nairobi:Government Printers).

Republic of Kenya (2002) Economic Survey 2002 (Nairobi: Government Printers).Republic of Kenya (2003) Public Expenditure Review 2003, mimeo (Nairobi:

Ministry of Planning and National Development 2003).


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Sarris, H.A. and R. Van den Brink (1994) ‘From Forced Modernization to Perestroika:Crisis and Adjustment in Tanzania’. In E.D. Sahn (ed.), Adjusting to Policy Failurein African Economies (Ithaca: Cornell University).

Uganda Ministry of Planning and Economic Development (2000) Uganda’sPoverty Eradication Action Plan (Kampala).

UNDP (2002) Kenya Human Development Report 2001: Addressing Social andEconomic Disparities for Human Development (Nairobi: UNDP).

UNDP (2003) Global Human Development Report, Millennium Development Goals: ACompact among Nations to End Human Poverty (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

UNDP (2004) Global Human Development Report: Cultural Liberty in Today’s DiverseWorld (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

World Bank (1996) Tanzania: The Challenge of Reforms. Growth, Incomes andWelfare (Washington, DC: World Bank).

World Bank (2001a) World Bank Policy and Research Bulletin, 12(2), April–June.World Bank (2001b) World Development Report 2000/01: Attacking Poverty (New

York: Oxford University Press).Wunsch, J.S. and D. Olowu (eds) (1990) The Failure of the Centralized State: Institutions

and Self-Governance in Africa (Boulder: Westview Press).


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7The Sociopolitical Structure ofAccumulation and Social Policy in Southern AfricaPatrick Bond

7.1 Introduction

This chapter seeks to clarify, as Huck-ju Kwon (2002: 1) puts it, how the‘socio-political structure of accumulation’ in Southern Africa emergedbased upon ‘the agendas of social actors and the development trajector-ies of countries’. This analysis permits a further explanation of water andhealth policies in three countries: South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana.These are the most industrially developed economies in the region (notincluding the island nation of Mauritius), with extensive upper-class,middle-class and working-class populations, and large numbers of ruraland urban unemployed.

The chapter begins with a brief survey of methods often used to dis-sect economic structure, social policy and related political influences onthe social wage. It then provides contextual information about the threecountries’ recent development trajectories and about emblematic aspectsof water and health policies that reflect the sociopolitical structure ofthe society. As ‘Jìmí Adésínà (2002: 1–3) describes it, the problem is tounpack processes of ‘considerable unevenness: the shift in the under-standing of and nature of macroeconomic and social policy thrusts, thenature and the role of the state, and the primary source and nature ofincentives’.

In this context, a series of leading questions may help point to coreaspects of social policies, especially water and health care. Manuel Riesco(2003: 5–6) asks, ‘what kind of relationship . . . [exists] between socialpolicy, economic development and the underlying social structures?What is the relationship between state-led industrialization . . . and wel-fare state development? What kind of societies did these welfare statesdevelop in?’

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To answer requires assessing social policy from a structuralist stand-point. The problems associated with socioeconomic crisis, and with water/sanitation and health policies in Southern Africa, have become soextreme that we can consider the specifically political-economic fea-tures of neoliberalism and its sponsors as the basis for our primary focus.However, first we turn to a review of historical and more recent political-economic dynamics associated with the sociopolitical structure of accumulation.

7.2 Historical features of the sociopoliticalstructure of accumulation

For a study concerning the relationship of capital accumulation and socialpolicy formulation in the three most industrialized Southern Africansocieties, the starting point is necessarily the way settler-colonialismrelied upon migrant-labour control systems. An abundance of SouthAfrican and Zimbabwean historiography concerning these topics con-trasts with the very limited record of Botswanan urbanization andindustrialization prior to independence and the development of the diamond industry, although some literature on the latter case is pre-sented in the next section. Because the work on Zimbabwe’s sociopoliti-cal structure of accumulation has drawn on largely empiricist (althoughextremely rich) arguments, we might simply cite these works in passing1

and focus more on the relationship between sociopolitical developmentand accumulation processes in South Africa.

The Apartheid and pre-Apartheid migrant labour system, after all, wasnot only the model for that used in Zimbabwe and, to some extent,Botswana. In addition, the ‘minerals–energy complex’ at the heart of theSouth African economy includes companies that have been dominantplayers in the region either directly (DeBeers in Botswana and Anglo inZimbabwe) or indirectly via the extension of broader non-mining acqui-sitions and financial power (Anglo in Zimbabwe). Hence it is importantto correctly specify the sociopolitical structure of accumulation. SouthernAfrica’s most debilitating socioeconomic problems are best consideredas deep-rooted manifestations of a semi-peripheral economy manipu-lated at will by imperial powers dating to the mid-nineteenth century,accompanied by the rise of complicit local ruling elites.

Three sets of closely related problems can be identified:

• First, colonialism’s artificial borders, racism and ideological control,ethnic ‘divide-and-rule’ strategies, land acquisition, labour control,

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suppression of competition from indigenous sources, military conflict(independence struggles) and replacement by African nationalismtogether guaranteed a future of distorted economics and failed states.

• secondly, for women, pre-colonial patrilineal systems evolved into colo-nial forms of inequality (e.g., minority status and legal guardianship)which often persisted and evolved as post-colonial forms of structuredoppression (e.g., market-related brideprice), in part because colonial-ism’s migrant labour systems required ultra-inexpensive workers whowomen would subsidize through childrearing, home-based medical careand retirement (in lieu of the standard set of business-financed schools,medical plans and pensions offered to workers elsewhere); and

• thirdly, political continuities from past to present include unreformedstate structures, international political and cultural relations with colo-nial powers, and especially class alliances involving compradorism(local elites working in league with international oppressors).

Of greatest interest for understanding social policy was the fate ofindigenous black African people under the compulsion of new wage-labour disciplines. Once the colonial spoils were divided at the 1885Berlin Conference, the British government mandated the Cape PrimeMinister Cecil John Rhodes and his British South Africa Company (BSAC)to seize a vast area stretching north from Lesotho. The British militarybeat back resistance from the region’s Africans (most decisively in SouthernRhodesia during the 1890s) and from Afrikaners (in the South African-Anglo-Boer War of 1899–1902). British settlers thereby gave birth to thesociopolitical construct of Southern Africa. Using traditional techniquesto strip land from indigenous peoples – ‘hut taxes’, debt peonage sys-tems and fees for cattle-dipping and grazing, as well as other more directforms of compulsion – the settlers drew African men from the fields,into the mines and emerging factories.

But it took more than geopolitical influence and investment to form aregional working class. Racialized capitalism throughout SouthernAfrica also came to depend heavily upon extraordinarily ‘cheap’ migrantlabour and various forms of extra-economic coercion.

The Johannesburg mining houses soon organized a Chamber of Mines inorder to establish recruitment offices in far-flung parts of the region. Thesystem’s profitability and durability relied initially upon a social subsidy –from household production by the migrant workers’ families back homeon the land – that allowed wages to be set well below the cost of reproduc-tion of labour power. In short, white capital and white-ruled states in theregion spent next to nothing on black education in rural areas, on black

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workers’ and their families’ health care, or on black workers’ pensions.The subsidy came partly from exhausting the ecology of the bantustan(homeland) labour reserves, where land and water were degraded overtime due to overpopulation pressure (millions of people having beenforcibly removed from ‘white’ parts of South Africa and Zimbabwe).

Moreover, it is not widely acknowledged, but the system of racial oppres-sion was also, primarily, a system of gender-based super-exploitationthat made possible migrant labour throughout the Southern Africanregion. South Africa’s urban managers designed a subsidy from the ruralareas so as to lower the cost of workers in the mines and factories. Themigrant workers did not, when they were young, require companies topay their parents enough to cover school fees, or pay taxes for govern-ment schools to teach workers’ children. When sick or disabled, thoseworkers were often shipped back to their rural homes until ready towork again. When the worker was ready to retire, the employer typicallyleft him a pittance, such as a cheap watch, not a pension that allowedthe elderly to survive in dignity. From youth through to illness to old age,capitalists were let off the hook. The subsidy covering child-rearing, recu-peration and old age was provided by rural African women. The central les-son from this crucial aspect of apartheid was that capitalism systematicallyoverexploited the bantustan areas, especially women, which suppliedsuch a large proportion of workers (Wolpe 1972, 1980; O’Meara 1996).

Resistance was sporadic. On the one hand, uneven formal working-class organization existed in many parts of the subcontinent, resultingperiodically in strikes, especially in the mining and railway industries.But at the point of production, the forces of law and order were invari-ably stronger and treacherous. The most virulent symptoms of socialmorbidity typically occurred just prior to independence, as settlers heldon to privileges with sophisticated state repressive capacity, much of whichcarried over into the post-colonial state. (Botswana was spared much ofthis turmoil, since so little wealth was perceived to be at stake in theearly 1960s.) Then the post-colonial state was quickly harnessed for neo-colonial duty. This allowed, in turn, the region to continue expandingexports notwithstanding extremely unfair terms of trade (the differencebetween prices paid for exports in relation to prices paid for imports).The peak of demand for Africa’s raw materials, before synthetic substi-tutes were invented, was during the Second World War. From the mid-1970s, the terms of trade worsened dramatically, in part because ofexport-oriented policies which most African countries, includingZimbabwe during the 1980s (and, to a lesser extent, South Africa in the1990s), were compelled to adopt once they experienced debt crises.

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To explain this sociopolitical character of accumulation, there were avariety of additional intellectual exercises set broadly within structural-ist theory.2 Drawing on critical (mainly class-based) analysis of the con-tinuities associated with the sociopolitical structure of accumulation, amajor body of literature emerged in the post-apartheid era to clarifySouth Africa’s worsening processes of exploitation.3 So too in Botswanaand Zimbabwe, the contemporary period of neoliberalism – roughly atwo-decade experience (though somewhat shorter in Zimbabwe and mit-igated by the reinvestment of mineral resource revenues in Botswana) –provides explicit evidence of accumulation patterns that, in turn, set thestage for neoliberal water and health policies.

7.3 Recent political economic dynamics

Both short- and longer-term features of the contemporary sociopoliticalcharacter of accumulation must be considered. We can start with theregion’s economic powerhouse, South Africa, but the core processes arenot dissimilar in Zimbabwe and Botswana (even if the latter continuesto record impressive gross domestic product (GDP) increases).

South Africa

The long-term (1970s–present) structural ‘crisis’ in the contemporarySouth African economy – ultimately rooted in tendencies towards what istermed the overaccumulation of capital – is perhaps most baldly reflected,at surface level, in persistent overcapacity and overproduction of luxurymanufactured goods for the (mainly white) consumer market, side-by-side with growing surpluses of unemployed black workers. There arefour levels of the economy to consider as crucial to the sociopoliticalstructure of accumulation.

First, the minerals–energy complex remains South Africa’s economicbase. Secondly, machinery and other intermediate capital goods remainunderdeveloped. Thirdly, luxury goods are produced locally at close toworld standards (if not prices), thanks to extremely high relative levels of(traditionally white) consumer demand, decades of protective tariffs andthe presence of major multinational corporate branch plants. Fourthly,South Africa suffers extremely sparse basic needs industries, witnessed bythe production of low-cost housing far below optimal capacity, dangerousand relatively costly transport, and the underproduction of cheap, simpleappliances and clothing (which are increasingly imported). At the sametime social services and the social wage have been – and remain – inadequate


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as survival support for the country’s majority. For most of the twentiethcentury, Zimbabwe had nearly identical problems, compounded by struc-tural adjustment during the 1990s and extreme economic mismanage-ment since the late 1990s. Botswana’s growth thanks to diamonds andcattle hides structural features of a similar nature.

These features left South Africa and its neighbours highly vulnerable topost-Apartheid processes of trade and financial liberalization, investmentderegulation and monetarist central bank policy. Reacting to periodiccurrency crashes, extremely high interest rates in South Africa translatedinto lower growth, and the driving forces behind South African GDPwere decreasingly based in real ‘productive’ activity, and increasingly infinancial/speculative functions that are potentially unsustainable and evenparasitical (Heintz 2003; UNDP 2004; Bond 2005).

Finally, of greatest relevance to social policy, soaring unemploymentwas the government’s biggest single failure, by all accounts. Falling tariffson imported industrial machinery allowed automation to kill hundredsof thousands of jobs, while many more tens of thousands in vulnerableindustries were eliminated thanks to imported consumer goods from EastAsia. During the 1990s, large employment declines occurred in mining(47 per cent), manufacturing (20 per cent), and even the public sector (10per cent). Casualization of once-formal labour – for example, in construc-tion and farms – was also a major factor, though apparently it has notbeen measured seriously by the state. All told, the country’s unemploy-ment rate rose from 16 per cent in 1995 to 31.2 per cent in 2003. Addingto that figure the category of ‘frustrated job-seekers’ (that is, those whohave given up looking for employment) brings the percentage of unem-ployed people to 42 per cent (Altman 2003; Nattrass 2003).

Women were especially serious victims of post-Apartheid economicrestructuring, with unemployment broadly defined at 46 per cent (com-pared to 35 per cent for men), and a massive late 1990s decline in rela-tive pay – from 78 per cent of male wages in 1995 to just 66 per cent in1999 (UNDP 2004). Women are also the main caregivers in the home,and this entails bearing the highest burden associated with degradedhealth. With the public healthcare services in decline due to underfund-ing and the increasing penetration of private providers, infectious dis-eases such as tuberculosis, cholera, malaria and AIDS are rife, all farhigher than during Apartheid. Diarrhoea kills 43,000 children a year,mainly as a result of inadequate potable water provision. Most SouthAfricans with HIV have little prospect of receiving anti-retroviral medi-cines to extend their lives, thanks to the ‘denialist’ policies of Mbeki andhis health minister, as discussed below.

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In contrast, the forces in South African society which gained mostfrom the country’s post-Apartheid economic management were wealthywhite households and export-oriented businesses and financial corpor-ations. These people and firms moved their capital out of the countryfrom 1995, when exchange controls were first relaxed, to 2000, by whenmost of South Africa’s largest companies had relocated their financialheadquarters to London. The pre-tax profit share soared during the late1990s, back to 1960s-era levels associated with Apartheid’s heyday. Froma low of 43 per cent in 1990 and 44 per cent in 1995, the profit share ofnational income rose to 49 per cent in 2002. To encourage business toinvest, Pretoria also cut primary corporate taxes dramatically (from 48per cent in 1994 to 30 per cent in 1999, although a dividends tax wasadded), and offered tax concessions mainly to higher-income individualSouth Africans worth R75 billion in the first ten years of liberation (off-setting by many times a new capital gains tax). The regressive, contro-versial Value Added Tax – which catalysed a massive 1991 strike – wasalso retained in the post-apartheid era.

One result, according to an October 2002 government report, was thataverage black ‘African’ household income fell in real terms by 19 per centfrom 1995 to 2000 (to the purchasing-power parity level of $3,714/year),while white household income was up 15 per cent (to $22,600/year). Forthe entire 1994–2004 period, the fall in African income was no doubtmuch greater than 19 per cent; and, no doubt, whites received far morethan a 15 per cent income boost during the full decade of ‘liberation’(Statistics South Africa 2002). Do active social policies make up for thisdecline? In education and health care, user fees reduce the benefits ofstate spending for very poor people, and the same is even more true inconsumables such as water, electricity and telephones, which were allcharacterized by massive disconnection rates. The government’s chiefwater bureaucrat Mike Muller (2004) conceded that in 2003, ‘275,000 of all households attributed interruptions to cut-offs for non-payment’,which extrapolates to in excess of 1.5 million people affected that year alone.

These features of neoliberalism and its damage together point to asimple conclusion. Notwithstanding official rhetoric to the contrary,South Africa suffered the replacement of racial apartheid with what canbe accurately considered to be class Apartheid: systemic underdevelop-ment and segregation of the oppressed majority, through structured eco-nomic, political, environmental, legal, medical and cultural practiceslargely organized or codified by Pretoria politicians and bureaucrats.Patriarchy and racism remained largely intact in many areas of daily life,


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even if a small elite of women and black people were incorporated intostate management and the accumulation of capital.

Botswana

Botswana’s increasing integration into the global economy since itachieved political independence from Britain in 1966 also offers importantinsights into economic structure and social policy (Mhone 1993; Mhoneand Bond 2002). Botswana’s development trajectory calls into questionfundamental assumptions about the accommodating nature of the globalenvironment, for the economic restructuring and export diversificationrequired to transform Botswana’s impressive GDP growth into balanceddevelopment has not happened. Botswana is characterized not only byhigh growth, but also by macroeconomic balance (notwithstanding cur-rency volatility in relation to the highly vulnerable South African rand)and political stability (notwithstanding an authoritarian security atmos-phere). With just two million people, Botswana typically ranks in the topten African countries on the United Nations Development Programme’s(UNDP’s) Human Development Index, thanks to its $3,000 per capita GDP.However, it lies at only around one hundredth in the international ratings,partly because of a dramatically lowered life expectancy due to AIDS.

Botswana’s structural vulnerabilities include its drought-prone geo-graphical location in a semi-arid part of the African continent, high costsof transport, service provision and infrastructure construction, and a smalleffective demand that prevents scale economies. Like other small coun-tries in the region, Botswana evolved through peripheral dependencyupon South Africa, from which it imported manufactured and industrialgoods as part of the Southern African Customs Union. Diamonds accountfor a third of GDP, three-quarters of exports and half the state’s income.Yet unemployment rose from 10 per cent in 1981 to 17 per cent in 1984,to 22 per cent by the late 1990s, and although there was a decline inhouseholds falling below the poverty datum line from 49 per cent in1985/86 to 37 per cent in 1993/94, 23 per cent of households remain‘very poor’. Between 45 per cent and 54 per cent of rural households do notown any cattle, and only about 15 per cent of the households accountedfor about 75 per cent of the national herd. Prospects for diversificationhave been further undermined by the smallness of the economy and thelack of minimum thresholds of demand that would warrant lumpy invest-ments to meet local (or export) demand. Indeed, Botswana has notice-ably failed to transform its high saving rates into investment. During the1990s, the savings rate was around 40 per cent, while gross investmentwas between 25 per cent and 30 per cent.

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What these mean for water and health policies is that the socio-political structure of accumulation is extremely biased towards a smallenclave of mining sector activity, which limits the basis for the broad-based development of the society, hence reducing the scope for effectivesocial policy. Enormous demand exists for water and health services,especially in view of the AIDS pandemic, yet the dispersed nature ofrural population patterns and the lack of linkages between health/waterservices and the rest of the economy are disincentives for either state orprivate investment. While Botswana relies on diamonds and cattle – thelatter consuming disproportionate water and veterinary services – andwhile industrial development remains severely constrained by insuffi-cient effective demand, these problems are not likely to be resolved.

Zimbabwe

In Zimbabwe, in contrast, the experience of the 1980s expansion ofhealth and water services to the low-income rural masses of people showedpotential for enhancing linkages between the rural and urban, and improv-ing overall productivity. Exemplary social policy during the first decadeof independence had reduced infant mortality from 86 to 49 per 1,000live births, raised the immunization rate from 25 per cent to 80 per centand life expectancy from 56 to 62 years, doubled primary school enrol-ment, and so on. Unfortunately, a subsequent shift during the 1990stowards international trade, investment and financial flows was directlycorrelated with economic collapse, and then a return to dirigism espe-cially after 2000.4

Upon taking power, the new Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU)government of Robert Mugabe initially maintained the bulk of Rhodesian-era regulatory controls, and good rains plus a business cycle upturn led toa very rapid growth rate in 1980–1. Economic managers – especiallyFinance Minister Bernard Chidzero – were soon committed to bothfinancial and trade liberalization. As a result of stagnant levels of fixedinvestment, the government’s main strategy to increase export revenueswas periodic currency devaluation. In 1984 devaluation reached nearly40 per cent within 18 months, for example, and was accompanied bymassive cuts in development spending and an unpopular reduction ofthe maize subsidy. The main beneficiaries were agricultural and mineralsexporters, but the devaluations simply cheapened goods temporarily,rather than structurally improving Zimbabwe’s export capacity.

The quid pro quo for access to foreign commercial loans and the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) and World Bank’s seal of approvalincluded not only fiscal constraints, high interest repayments and


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Zimbabwe’s hesitancy to ask for rescheduling of payments. There werealso specific conditions on US$700 million in new loans by the Bank(Zimbabwe’s single largest foreign lender), culminating in the 1991–5Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP). Contrary to Bankprojections, growth only reached 5 per cent during one year (1994), andaveraged just 1.2 per cent from 1991–95. Inflation averaged more than30 per cent during the period, and never dropped anywhere near the 10per cent goal. The budget deficit was more than 10 per cent of GDP dur-ing the ESAP era.

It is true that forces external to the logic of reforms – the 1992 and1995 droughts, durable fiscal deficits and severe losses by parastatals –all threw the plan off track. Conceptually, it is extremely difficult to con-trol for the drought factor, although, historically, the previous period ofsustained economic crisis, in the period 1974–8, was a time of extremelygood rains, while the late 1960s and early 1970s period of boominggrowth witnessed years of severe drought. Nevertheless, indicators aredisturbing. The manufacturing sector’s real (factor cost) contribution toGDP fell by 18 per cent from 1991 to 1995, and did not subsequentlyrecover much ground. Total manufacturing output fell from an indexedpeak of 143 (with 1980 � 100) in 1991 by 24 per cent to 109 in 1999, as de-industrialization ravaged the textiles (�64 per cent), metals (�35 percent), transport equipment (�31 per cent) and clothing (�28 per cent)subsectors. Unemployment remained rampant, with a tiny fraction ofthe 200,000 annual school leavers able to find formal sector employ-ment. The social wage fell thanks largely to new cost-recovery policies forhealth, education and many other social services, as well as unprece-dented interest rates on consumer credit. Primary school dropout ratessoared during the 1990s, with girls particularly prone to suffer whenschool fee increases were imposed; and likewise, just as the HIV/AIDSpandemic hit Zimbabwe, from 1990–5, per capita spending on care fellby 20 per cent in real terms.

The 1991–7 period, during which ESAP was implemented, can thus beconsidered a failure in many crucial respects. Popular opinion was reflectedin ‘IMF Riots’, including the 1993 bread riots which broke out in high-density suburbs of Harare, and in the city centre in 1995. Public workerswent on strike in 1996, and other private employees (including planta-tion workers) followed at an unprecedented rate in 1997. By the timethat political opposition consolidated in 1998–99, leading to a new,labour-led political party that nearly won the 2000 parliamentary elec-tions, many ZANU came to the conclusion that ESAP was their mostimportant policy error. The crash of the massively overvalued Zimbabwe

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Stock Exchange began in September 1997 and was followed by threecontroversial political calculations by Mugabe: first, to raise rhetorical(and later actual) conflicts surrounding land maldistribution; secondly,to grant large pension fund payouts to veterans of the 1963–79 LiberationWar; and thirdly, to involve Zimbabwean troops in the war in theDemocratic Republic of Congo.

As punishment, investors simply ran from Zimbabwe. On the latemorning of 14 November 1997, the Zimbabwe dollar lost 74 per cent ofits value in a four-hour period. As a result, unprecedented inflation wasimported, leading in January and October 1998 to urban riots over priceincreases for maize and fuel, respectively. Mugabe and the ZANU gov-ernment reacted by moving back into dirigiste policy territory: imposing amid-1998 price freeze on staple goods, a late 1998 tariff on luxuryimports, and several minor technical interventions to raise revenues,slow capital flight and deter share speculation. This pattern simply con-tinued into the 2000s, with the February 2000 endorsement of war-veteran land invasions and subsequent impositions of price controls,artificially low interest rates, bank bailouts, and a tightened exchangecontrol regime. These policies were variously amplified or relaxed dur-ing a zig-zag 2000–05 period of steady economic decline and intensepolitical repression.

In all three cases in which we have explored historical and contempo-rary political economic dynamics, the core tendencies and many eviden-ciary aspects contribute to what Kwon terms the sociopolitical structureof accumulation, including ‘the agendas of social actors and the devel-opment trajectories of countries’. We can now turn the focus specificallyto these three countries’ water and health policies, to make further connections.

7.4 Water policy

Southern Africa is one of the most interesting sites of debate over how toconceptualize, deliver and price water for consumption, ranging from the‘bulk’ raw water drawn from rivers, dams and aquifers, to the householdsand institutions that consume water. The central question now emergingconcerns intractable contradictions between a rights-based agenda, respect-ful of the social and ecological characteristics of water, and an approachthat emphasizes water as an economic good, a commodity. The former isbest captured in this phrasing from the 1996 Bill of Rights in the Constitu-tion of the Republic of South Africa (1996, s.24a, s27.1): ‘everyone hasthe right to an environment that is not harmful to their health or


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well-being. . . everyone has the right to have access to. . . sufficientwater’. In contrast, The Economist (2003: 1–5) magazine’s mid-2003 sur-vey on water declared the central dilemma in neoliberal terms: ‘Throughouthistory, and especially over the past century, it has been ill-governed and,above all, colossally underpriced.’ As for the problem of allocating anddelivering water to the poor, ‘The best way of solving it is to treat waterpretty much as a business like any other.’

To illustrate, in most urban systems, the cost of supplying an add-itional drop of water – the ‘short-run marginal cost curve’ (Line A inFigure 7.1) – tends to fall as users increase their consumption, because itis cheaper to provide the next unit to a large consumer than a small con-sumer. Reasons for this include the large-volume consumers’ economiesof scale (that is, bulk sales), their smaller per unit costs of maintenance,the lower administrative costs of billing one large-volume consumerinstead of many small ones, and the ability of the larger consumers tobuy water at a time when it is not in demand – that is, during the mid-dle of the night – and store it for use during peak demand periods. Thepremise here is that the pricing of water should correspond directly tothe cost of the service all the way along the supply curve. Such a systemmight then include a profit mark-up across the board (Line B), whichassures the proper functioning of the market and an incentive for contracting-out or even full privatization by private suppliers.

The progressive principle of cross-subsidization, in contrast, violatesthe logic of the market. By imposing a block tariff that rises for larger

Figure 7.1 Three ways to price water: Marginal cost (A), for-profit (B), and cross-subsidized lifeline plus rising block tariff (C).

Price

A

B

C

Quantity

Surplus

Subsidy

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consumers (Line C), the state would consciously distort the relationshipof cost to price and hence send economically ‘inefficient’ pricing signals toconsumers. In turn, argue neoliberal critics of progressive block tariffs,such distortions of the market logic introduce a disincentive to supply low-volume users. For example, in advocating against South Africa’s subse-quent move towards a free lifeline and rising block tariff, a key WorldBank expert (Roome 1995: 49–53) advised that water privatization con-tracts ‘would be much harder to establish’ if poor consumers had theexpectation of getting something for nothing. If consumers did not pay,the Bank suggested, South African authorities required a ‘credible threatof cutting service’. In 2000, the Bank’s Sourcebook on Community DrivenDevelopment in the Africa Region laid out the policy on pricing water,just after the South African water minister promised to finally implementa free basic water policy: ‘Work is still needed with political leaders in somenational governments to move away from the concept of free water for all’(World Bank 2000: Annex 2).

By way of rebuttal, the difference between Lines A and C allows notonly for free universal lifeline services and a cross-subsidy from hedon-istic users to low-volume users. There are also two additional benefits ofproviding free water services to some and extremely expensive servicesto those with hedonistic consumption habits:

• higher prices for high-volume consumption should encourage conserva-tion which would keep the longer-run costs of supply down (i.e., by delay-ing the construction of new dams or supply-side enhancements); and

• benefits accrue to society from the ‘merit goods’ and ‘public goods’associated with free provision of services, such as improved publichealth, gender equity, environmental protection, economic spin-offsand the possibility of desegregating residential areas by class.

South Africa is a particularly good case to consider how neoliberal ideol-ogy translates into both water policy and state delivery practices. TheBank’s (1999, Annex C) own Country Assistance Strategy concluded withthe claim that advice by ‘knowledge bank’ water expert John Roome inOctober 1995 was ‘instrumental in facilitating a radical revision in SouthAfrica’s approach to bulk water management’. Although the presentationdealt with the transition from national-scale (bulk) ‘riparian rights’ to awater-market strategy ultimately adopted in a 1998 policy and law, themicroeconomics of water pricing were also crucial.

The most important point about the advice on microeconomic pric-ing is how it led to distributionally-regressive outcomes in South Africa’scities, and caused a cholera epidemic in the rural areas. Most South African

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cities moved in Roome’s favoured direction, that is, away from cross-subsidization. The Palmer Development Group (2001: 8) found, in its sur-vey of Rand Water Board users, that low-volume users had systematicallybeen charged more than higher-volume users, during the late 1990s: ‘Itis evident that there is a continuing increase in tariffs in real terms, of theorder of 7% per year for all blocks. . . the lowest block is the one whichis increasing fastest.’ The policy changed in July 2001, when the ‘freebasic services’ promise of the ANC was partially adopted. At that point,Johannesburg adjusted its tariff curve, but, as shown in Figure 7.2, thetariff schedule was a very steep, convex curve, with the second consump-tion block unaffordable for many low-income people, leading to evenhigher rates of water disconnections in poor areas.

The 6,000 litres represent just two toilet flushes a day per person for ahousehold of eight, for those lucky enough to have flush toilets. It leftno additional water to drink, wash with, clean clothes or for any otherhousehold purposes. In contrast, from the progressive point of view, anoptimal strategy would provide a larger free lifeline tariff, ideally on aper-person, not per-household basis, and then rise in a concave mannerto penalize luxury consumption.

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R �

R 1

R 2

R 3

R 4

R 5

R 6

R 7

R 8

R 9

R 10

1 11 21 31 41 51 61 71 81 91 101

Consumption (kl/month)

Actual Tariffs(Rand/kl)

Johannesburg

Ideal for hh of 10

Figure 7.2 Divergent water pricing strategies – Johannesburg (2001) versus idealtariff for large households.Source: Johannesburg Water (thin) and own projection (thick).

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Zimbabwe demonstrates much more interesting phenomena, in turnreflecting conflicting socioeconomic objectives, the power of donor gov-ernments to set the institutional and policy objectives during the 1990spolicy reform era, and contradictions in implementation in the contextof the political-economic crisis described above. The major donors, espe-cially the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida),helped Zimbabwean bureaucrats to draft a Water Resources ManagementStrategy, finally issued in 2000, that promoted public–private partner-ships. The national state ‘owns’ the country’s water; municipalities areresponsible for urban distribution (notwithstanding enormous politicalstrife, as noted below); and catchment councils have been established witheven more institutional rigour than in South Africa. The latter agencies’mandate is to decide upon several crucial aspects of system manage-ment: water allocations; the requirements of the water reserve; the mainissues affecting water quality and quantity which require investigation;management goals for addressing the critical issues, and potential man-agement strategies and responsibilities for action to achieve these objec-tives; and financial arrangements. Most importantly, both municipalitiesand the councils are meant to raise their own resources – from manage-ment fees, levies paid for volumetric consumption, and penalties for pol-lution or other rule violations – and become self-financing.

The pricing strategies associated with this shift are important, as the2000 National Water Resources Strategy commited to devolving powerto ‘stakeholders who will manage the system on a user-pay, polluter-pay,sliding-water price, commercial basis’. Notwithstanding the emergentnational dirigisme noted above, the state’s commitment to commercial-izing services dated to the adoption of ESAP, and by 1995, ‘rapid privati-sation of the key parastatals’ providing water and other state serviceshad become a central World Bank (1995: 35) demand on the Zimbabwegovernment. A 1995 directive by the senior secretary of the Ministry ofLocal Government, Rural and Urban Development committed the stateto ‘encouraging urban local authorities to consider options for commer-cialisation, privatisation and contracting in and out some or all of theirservices’ (cited in Plummer and Nhemachena 2001: 7). In 1996, a TaskForce for Commercialisation of Municipal Services was established. By2000, the Ministry of Rural Resources and Water Development’s WaterResources Management Strategy (2000: 49) followed up with specifics:

The nature of the private sector participation envisaged in the watersector will be largely in the form of public-private sector partnerships.The companies bring in management expertise, technical skills and

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credit standing in financial investments. A mutually beneficial partnership is built between the public and private sector to ensurethat consumers ultimately get the best service possible within themeans available.

Contradictions became overwhelming, even before the rest of the econ-omy went into meltdown. In 1996, Harare mayor Solomon Tawengwasigned a letter of intent to the British firm Biwater to repair water infra-structure, but Biwater backed out when profitability was found to be toolow. A few years later, as Harare water was beset by quality, shortage andleakage problems, more multi-billion-dollar public–private partnershipproposals were mooted by international agencies. The main sites for aset of international privatizers aiming to ‘cherry-pick’ the most profitablemunicipal services were the wealthiest councils – Victoria Falls, Ruwaand Gweru – whose per capita urban council revenue was higher thanother sites. In 1999, the British subsidiary of French water privatizer Saurwas selected by Gweru officials to prepare a commercialization plan. Thefirm demanded a 100 per cent increase in water tariffs. However, asZimbabwe ran out of foreign exchange during the early 2000s, the threatof foreign water corporations making inroads into supply has receded.In sum, the post-independence Zimbabwe water policy experience sug-gests several contradictions associated with creeping neoliberalism atboth national and municipal/catchment levels. Similar processes are evi-dent in the health sector.

7.5 Health policy

Across Southern Africa, the effects of neoliberal policies in the healthsector have included disincentives to health-seeking behaviour, wit-nessed by lower utilization rates and declines in the perceived cost andquality of services (Bond and Dor 2003). Household expenditures onhealth care, and the ability of people on low incomes to meet majorhealth care expenses was diminished, as did standards of nutrition. Priceinflation in health services and additional copayment costs placed often-unbearable burdens on household disposable incomes and on food con-sumption. A dramatic decline in employment status had a negative effecton disposable income, time utilization and food purchasing.

Other symptoms of neoliberal policies, such as urban drift and migrancy,contributed to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The effects on health workerswere also mainly negative, including cuts in the size of the civil service,wage and salary decay, declining morale, and the brain drain of doctors

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and researchers. Likewise, the effects on health system integrity includeddeclining fiscal support; difficulties in gaining access to equipment,drugs and transport (often due to foreign exchange shortages accompa-nying excessive debt repayment); and the diminished ability of healthsystems to deal with AIDS-related illnesses. Moreover, other aspects ofStructural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) and neoliberalism introducedadverse health implications, such as the increasing commodification ofbasic health-related goods and services (such as food, water and energy)that made many unaffordable. Meanwhile, the HIV/AIDS pandemic wasputting enormous pressure on the continent’s health services. On theassumption that health staff have similar prevalence rates as the popu-lation as a whole, there will need to be an increase in training of 25–40per cent just to keep staff numbers constant. Such statistics call for a mas-sive rethink on the allocation of resources to the health sector, in eachof the three countries under study.

In South Africa, seminal policies, such as the White Paper for the Trans-formation of the Health System (1997) and Towards a National Health System(1997), recognized some of these problems. However, perhaps most impor-tantly, the Community Agency for Social Enquiry (1995) documentedthat for 74 per cent of Africans, the cost of health services was a primarybarrier to access. Closures of hospital facilities in several cities were antic-ipated to save money and allow for redeployment of personnel, althoughthey also affected access, since many consumers used these in lieu of clin-ics. But other areas of implementation – the District Health System; clinicbuilding; free PHC, maternal and child health and reproductive rights;child nutrition; staffing – relied not only on provincial departments tak-ing the vast bulk of resource, planning and implementation responsibili-ties. There were serious shortfalls in medical personnel willing to work inrural South Africa, requiring two major programmatic initiatives: thedeployment of foreign personnel in rural clinics; and the imposition of atwo-year Community Service requirement on students graduating frompublicly subsidized medical schools.

The most severe blight on South Africa’s post-Apartheid record of healthleadership was, without question, its HIV/AIDS policy. These must beblamed upon both the personal leadership flaws of the president andhealth minister, and upon features of the sociopolitical structure of accu-mulation. With millions of people dying early because of AIDS, andapproximately five million HIV� South Africans in 2004, the battle againstthe disease was one of the most crucial tests of the post-Apartheid government. Its systematic failure to address AIDS, and especially itsongoing sabotage of medicinal treatment for HIV� patients, led to periodic


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charges of ‘genocide’ by the heads of the Medical Research Council(Malegapuru Makgoba), SA Medical Association (Kgosi Letlape), and PanAfricanist Congress health desk (Costa Gazi), as well as leading publicintellectual Sipho Seepe.

A great deal has been written about Pretoria’s malfeasance on AIDSpolicies. The point of revisiting it in the context of the sociopoliticalstructure of accumulation is to provide a more robust explanation forthe crisis. Beyond the oft-cited peculiarities of the president himself,there are three deeper reasons why local and global power relationshipsmeant that the battle against AIDS has mainly been lost, to date. Onereason is the pressure exerted by international and domestic financialmarkets to keep Pretoria’s state budget deficit to 3 per cent of GDP.

The second structural reason is the residual power of pharmaceuticalmanufacturers to defend their rights to ‘intellectual property’ – that is,monopoly patents on life-saving medicines. This pressure did not end inApril 2001 when the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association with-drew their notorious lawsuit against the South African Medicines Act of1997, which permits parallel import or local production, via ‘compul-sory licenses’, of generic substitutes for brand-name anti-retroviral medi-cines. Big Pharma’s power was felt in the debate over essential drugs forpublic health emergencies at the November 2001 Doha World TradeOrganization summit, and ever since.

The third structural reason for the ongoing HIV/AIDS holocaust inSouth Africa is the vast size of the reserve army of labour, for this featureof the sociopolitical structure of accumulation allows companies to replacesick workers with desperate, unemployed people instead of providingthem treatment. For Anglo, the largest employer, the cost–benefit analy-sis conducted in 2001 confirmed that for the lowest-paid 88 per cent ofworkers, it was cheaper to deny them AIDS medicines and insteadchoose replacements from the unemployed (Bond 2005).

In sum, no matter the effectiveness of activism against government,Big Pharma and the corporate employers, all three structural factors arestill deterrents to the provision of treatment. By late 2003, each wasslightly mitigated, however, and that led to an ostensible change of policyby Pretoria.

Because Botswana’s health policy is relatively unremarkable, it is worthfocusing on one extremely innovative aspect that follows from the mater-ial reviewed immediately above: AIDS treatment distribution. The Maserugovernment’s AIDS programme is called Masa, and cost $70 million to setup in 2000. Treatment uptake was 15,000 people by 2004, still a small frac-tion of the number who would benefit from treatment, given that there

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are an estimated 300,000 HIV � Botswanans. Physical infrastructure created under the state AIDS programme includes blood-testing, a teach-ing clinic, and the construction of several dozen treatment centres.

A key feature of Masa is its relationship to global private capital andbusiness foundations, in the form of the African Comprehensive HIV/AIDSPartnership. This project was driven by staff at the Bill and Melinda GatesFoundation with the cooperation of the Merck pharmaceuticals corpo-ration. Approximately $20 million each year is added by these enter-prises to AIDS treatment spending, not including donated or low-costantiretroviral medicines from Merck, GlaxoSmithKline and Bristol Myers-Squibb. The programme also includes private treatment, especially theDebswana diamond mining firm’s provision of medicines to nearly 7,000employees.

The programme is not without critics, however. The leader of theTreatment Action Campaign, Zackie Ahmat, has opposed the Botswanamodel’s adoption in South Africa, because ‘The drug company dona-tions are extremely limited, and are self-interested in warding off a moreserious challenge to their monopoly control of patents on some crucialdrugs. Likewise, we all understand the Gates Foundation’s self-interestin defending intellectual property rights. The Botswana prototype fordrug company philanthropy has generated a rising level of disgust’ (citedin Bond 2003).

In Zimbabwe, the most important aspect to understand is the switchfrom a post-independence populist but nevertheless top–down, statistdelivery model, to one exhibiting classical characteristics of neoliberal-ism. The main reason for the switch, which began in 1984, was the onsetof subsidy cuts that accompanied IMF macroeconomic conditionality, asnoted above. By 1985 the IMF pressured Mugabe to cut education andhealth spending, and in 1986 food subsidies fell to two-thirds their 1981levels. As a direct result of funding cuts and cost-recovery policies, exacerb-ated by the AIDS pandemic, Zimbabwe’s brief 1980s rise in literacy andhealth indicators was dramatically reversed (Bond 1998).

Although there were occasional lulls, pressure from Washington con-tinued until 1999, at which point Zimbabwe began defaulting on its debtrepayments. Beyond the predictable pressure on health policy through thefiscus, sector loans also represented powerful levers on social programmes,for while they did not reduce the scale of the programmes, they often threat-ened to denude them of their ability to provide basic services at little or nocost to the very poor. For example, a World Bank (1990: iii) health carefinancing programme in Zimbabwe argued for an ‘increase in user charges’and the establishment of insurance programmes as a means of reducing


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government involvement. The philosophy of cost recovery, initially adoptedby the Ministry of Health in 1985, began to be applied with a vengeancefrom 1991. Official fee exemptions for the poor were erratic. In 1992, withina year of the implementation of user charges, the maternal mortality ratehad doubled even in Harare due to fees imposed for ante-natal checkupsand hospital care. In early 1993 fees at rural clinics were temporarily sus-pended as a drought-recovery measure, but by early 1994 the fees were rein-troduced and increased (in some cases by more than 1,000 per cent)(Bijlmakers, Bassett and Sanders 1996).

Government’s response to decaying health conditions and to adjustment-related poverty in general – aside from lower per capita spending, theNovember 1991 ‘Social Dimensions of Adjustment’ programme and theOctober 1993 ‘Poverty Alleviation Action Plan’ (relaunched in January1995) – was underwhelming. By early 1994, the health minister admit-ted that (nominal) per capita spending on health had fallen by 37 percent since 1990 and medical services had become inaccessible to themajority. The government was now ‘so miserly that we are killing our-selves because we want to save a few cents’, he said (Bond 1998).

More generally, ESAP intensified Zimbabwe’s (and indeed Africa’s) healthproblems, especially the AIDS pandemic (Sanders and Sambo 1991).AIDS reduced income generation for rural women (now burdened withextra home-based care duties) and added new expenditures to the alreadyoverstretched budgets of affected households and kinship networks.Particular features of Zimbabwean political economy – such as themigrant labour system – can be blamed for the high rate of infection, butthere can be no doubt that structural adjustment exacerbated the sus-ceptibility to disease. As conditions deteriorated and foreign exchangebecame less available during the late 1990s, even simple medicines werehard to access at most clinics, and the major hospitals also deterioratedsharply. Together, these observations indicate the central role of fiscalresources in maintaining the health system, and they also point to theexplicit pressures faced by a government like Zimbabwe’s when it ini-tially attempted to expand health services, but in a manner driven fromthe top, and hence susceptible to reversal from the top when power rela-tions changed for the worse.

7.6 Conclusion: towards a new sociopolitical structure of accumulation

Thus far, in fields ranging from macroeconomics to water and health poli-cies, we have seen the penetration of neoliberal modes of reasoning, and

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the adverse implications for poor people. A new sociopolitical structureof accumulation is required, based on the accumulation of ‘decommod-ified’ human rights to basic services – especially water and anti-retroviralmedicines, as we have already seen. Most of the civil society advocacynetworks now working on these issues are offering critiques of neolib-eral policies, in South Africa, Zimbabwe and across Africa (even if inBotswana, progressive activism is at a nascent stage).

The challenge will be to turn the African Social Forum (ASF) network ofprogressive organizations into a vehicle that can transcend Pretoria’s NewPartnership for Africa’s Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers(PRSPs), and introduce a more genuine programme and strategy that will,in turn, give African activists more confidence for future local, nationaland continental struggles. The ASF is the most likely site to ultimatelybring these struggles together. In January 2002, dozens of African socialmovements met in Bamako, Mali in preparation for the Porto AlegreWorld Social Forum. It was one of the first substantial conferences sincethe era of liberation to combine progressive non-governmental organiza-tions (NGOs) and social movements from all parts of the continent, andwas followed by ASF sessions in Johannesburg (August 2002), Addis Ababa(January 2003), Lusaka (December 2004) and Bamako (January 2006).

Many ASF affiliates promote ‘decommodification’ of services such aswater and health care (especially anti-retroviral [ARV] access). South Africaprovides Africa’s best examples. For example, the demand for free lifelinesupplies of water and electricity is being made from the urban ghettos likeSoweto where disconnections remain a problem, to the many rural areaswhich have still not received piped water; in many cases activists destroywater meters and reconnect disconnected households illegally. The needfor free access to anti-retroviral medicines, for five million HIV� SouthAfricans, is just as acute, and has been taken up in a world-class struggleagainst local state and global capital by the Treatment Action Campaign.

Social policy theorist Gosta Esping-Andersen (1990) provides historicalcomparisons to these movements, for during the first half of the twenti-eth century, the Scandinavian welfare state grew because of urban–rural,worker–farmer, red–green alliances which made universalist demandson the ruling elites. Those demands typically aimed to give the workingclass and small farmers social protection from the vagaries of employ-ment, especially during periodic recessions. They therefore allowed peo-ple to escape the prison of wage labour, by weaving a thick, state-suppliedsafety net as a fall-back position. To decommodify their constituents’labour in this manner required, in short, that the alliance defend a levelof social protection adequate to meet basic needs. Over a period of decades,


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this took the form of generous pensions, health care, education, and otherfree state services which, like child care and elderly care, disproportion-ately support and liberate women. The electoral weight and grassrootspolitical power of the red–green alliance was sufficient to win thesedemands, which were paid for through taxing wealthy households andlarge corporations at high rates. They were defended until recently,when corporate power and the ideology of competitiveness have forcedsome cutbacks across Scandinavia.

The main point to make here is not only that ASF movement net-works (for example, labour-related, economic justice practitioners inchurches, health equity specialists, numerous types of environmental-ists, and so on) are advancing strong, mature, ideological statementsabout the debt, trade and related economic oppression they face. Inaddition, instead of working merely through NGO-type circuits, they areincreasingly tying their work to militant street action, as was evident atthe Durban World Conference Against Racism in August 2001 and theJohannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development a year later.

Where will these initiatives coalesce to challenge the prevailing socio-political structure of accumulation and its associated water and health pol-icies? A transformative social policy would aim to better link the spheres of production and collective consumption, in a manner accomplished inCuba where sophisticated health care production systems – including medicines comparable to first world pharmaceutical corporate products –emerged from an initial focus on primary healthcare. Such a progressiveinward-oriented import-substitution-industrialization strategy – not gearedto local luxury goods substitution, but instead to ensuring basic needs aremet, to the extent possible through internal means (indigenous technol-ogy and materials) – is a far cry from the ineffectual applications of mod-ernization and neoliberal policies ultimately adopted by Southern Africanelites, both during colonialism and after independence.

Progress is, ultimately, dependent upon full transformation, not onlyof the sociopolitical structure of accumulation, but also the character ofeconomic policy. As this chapter has shown, the various flaws in SouthAfrica’s, Botswana’s and Zimbabwe’s sociopolitical systems, and the trendsin water and health policies, stem from the existing structure of accumu-lation and political power, even where decolonization processes appearedto shake up the potential for policy in Botswana (1966), Zimbabwe (1980)and South Africa (1994). But as is evident, instead of breaking throughinto a new sociopolitical structure of accumulation, these episodes ofpolitical liberation were quickly distorted. From racial apartheid andcolonialism came class apartheid and neocolonialism. As we have seen,

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to expect the current beneficiaries in African bureaucracies to lead theway out of these class (and gendered, and residually racialized) power relations would be overoptimistic. The future lies in those civil societyforces whose objectives are to decommodify social relations, especiallywater and health services.

Notes

1 Explicitly structuralist historical studies include Van Onselen 1976; Phimister1988; Stoneman 1988; West 1990; Moore 1991; Bond 1998; Raftopoulos 1999;and Raftopoulos and Yushikuni 1999.

2 These structuralist accounts included Williams 1975; Davies, Kaplan, Morrisand O’Meara 1976; Davies, Kaplan, Morris and O’Meara 1976; Clarke 1978;Davies 1979; Saul and Gelb 1986; Gelb 1987; Gelb 1991; Meth 1991; and Fineand Rustomjee 1996.

3 Bell and Ntsebeza 2001; Alexander 2002; Bond 2002, 2005; Hart 2002; Seepe2004; Saul 2005.

4 See Mandaza 1986; Gibben 1995; Moyo 2000; Moore 2001; Rutherford 2001;Bond and Manyanya 2003; Hammer, Raftopoulos and Jensen 2003;Raftopoulos and Sachikonye 2003; Moyo and Yeros 2004; Phimister andRaftoupoulos 2004; Raftopoulos 2004; Raftopoulos and Phimister 2004.

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Saul, J. and S. Gelb (1986) The Crisis in South Africa (New York: Monthly Review).Seepe, S. (2004) Speaking Truth to Power (Johannesburg: Vista University Press).Statistics South Africa (2002) Earning and Spending in South Africa (Pretoria:

Statistics South Africa).Stoneman, C. (ed.) (1988) Zimbabwe’s Prospects (London: Macmillan).The Economist (2003) ‘Survey of Water’, 19 July.Treatment Action Campaign (2004) President Mbeki Misrepresents Facts and Once

Again Causes Confusion on HIV/AIDS. Cape Town, 11 February.UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) (2004) South Africa Human

Development Report 2003 (Pretoria: UNDP).van Onselen, C. (1976) Chibarro (London: Pluto Press).West, M. (1990) African Middle-Class Formation in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1890–1965.

PhD dissertation, Harvard University, Department of History, Cambridge.Williams, M. (1975) ‘An Analysis of South African Capitalism: Neo-Ricardianism

or Marxism?’, Conference of Socialist Economists’ Bulletin, 4(1).Wolpe, H. (1972) ‘Capitalism and Cheap Labour Power’, Economy and Society, 1.Wolpe, H. (ed.) (1980) The Articulations of Modes of Production (London: Routledge

and Kegan Paul).World Bank (1990) Zimbabwe: Issues in the Financing of Health Services

(Washington, DC: Population and Human Resources Development, SouthernAfrica Department).

World Bank (1995) Project Completion Report: Zimbabwe: Structural Adjustment Program(Washington, DC: Country Operations Division, Southern Africa Department).

World Bank (1995) Zimbabwe: Achieving Shared Growth (Washington, DC: SouthernAfrica Department).

World Bank (1999) Country Assistance Strategy: South Africa (Washington, DC:World Bank).

World Bank (2000) Sourcebook on Community Driven Development in the AfricaRegion: Community Action Programs, Africa Region, 17 March (Washington, DC:World Bank).

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8Social Policy in the DevelopmentContext: Water, Health andSanitation in Ghana and NigeriaOka Obono

8.1 Introduction

The Second Draft of the 2003 Nigerian National Water ResourcesManagement Policy opens with the words, ‘Water is life’ (Nigeria 2003: 3).It declares that adequate water supply is central to civilization and sup-ports the position of Agenda 21 that ‘Human health depends on a healthyenvironment, including clean water, sanitary waste disposal and anadequate supply of healthy food’ (Keating 1993: 10). These declarationsrecognize that the world population tripled in the last century while waterwithdrawal increased six times. Today, 1.1 billion and 2.4 billion people,respectively, are without improved sources of water and sanitation ser-vices. Thirty-one countries face chronic freshwater shortages. Forecastssuggest that this number could increase to 48 by 2025. About 2.5 billionpeople have no sanitary means of human waste disposal. Two million dieannually of water and sanitation-related diseases. Another 2 million,mostly children, die of diarrhoeal diseases (WHO/UNICEF 2000). Againstthis background, a debate has developed between proponents of privat-ized health services and water supply, and advocates of state responsibilityfor their continued subsidization. The present chapter examines this issuewith regard to the water, health and sanitation policies of Nigeria andGhana, their macroeconomic orientations, and the extent to which socialpolicy formulation in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is shaped by the vestedinterests of metropolitan business and a western creditor cartel.

Participatory approaches adopted between 1980 and 1990 increasedaccess to safe water among SSA countries from 22 per cent to 38 per cent(UNICEF 1995: 9). The 1980s were designated the Safe Water and SanitationDecade, although ‘that Decade also demonstrated conclusively that“business as usual” would never bring improvements quickly enough to

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cope with the backlog and provide access to growing populations’ (Jolly2000: vi).

In the 1990s, coordinated schemes afforded water and sanitation facil-ities to 800 million and 750 million people, respectively. The Water Supplyand Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) resolved that concertedaction was necessary to reduce the number of people without access by50 per cent by 2015, and achieve universal coverage by 2025. The 2015target was reaffirmed at the Millennium Summit (September 2000) andthe World Development Summit (August 2002). To achieve these goalswill cost $380 billion, according to World Bank estimates (Hulls 2003:32), which is why the Bank promotes privatization as the best optionopen to SSA governments.

Following the 1996 National Water Resources Masterplan, which rec-ommended an upward tariff review and annual investment of 14.5 bil-lion naira, the Nigerian government plans to complete 25,000 waterschemes and increase coverage from 43 per cent to 80 per cent by 2007(afrol News 2003). Five years after the Drinking Water Supply andSanitation Decade, however, only 39 per cent of Nigerians had access toclean water – a drop of more than 20 per cent from pre-decade levels.This casts doubt on the feasibility of the 2007 target, notwithstandingNigeria’s recent declassification from the list of countries with chronicfresh water shortages (Taiwo 2003).

In Ghana, where 56 per cent have access to water, a controversy boils.The Coalition Against the Privatization of Water in Ghana (CAP of Water)alleges that, for the sake of two transnational corporations, vested inter-ests in Ghana, foreign governments and the World Bank have violatedGhanaians’ right to water by brokering a deal that is technically defi-cient, financially incompetent, and not transparent. At a World BankConference on Community Water Supply and Sanitation in Washington,DC (1994), however, the Ghanaian Head of Planning, Community Waterand Sanitation Division (CWSD) reported on wide consultations withcivil society over the deal. According to him, community involvementwas high and ‘there is overwhelming evidence that communities regardthe facilities as their own’ (Asamoah 1998: 1).

This imbroglio raises several questions. Why is state divestiture fromwater supply part of World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF)conditionalities for loans? Why the insistence on cost-recovery measureswhen these have proved ineffective elsewhere?1 Why are implementationrates and impacts of social policy on water, health and sanitation low, andhow are these connected to the punitive incentives employed or coordi-nated by Bretton Woods? These questions are taken up in the next sections.

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8.2 Social policy in the African development context

Social policies should ideally involve the provision of public goods andservices, based on felt-needs in society. In SSA countries, however, suchpolicies often originate in the macroeconomic agendas and ‘vestedinterests’ of external creditor clubs (Obono 2003). These ‘vested inter-ests’ are characterized by Glazer in The Limits of Social Policy as ‘the chiefobstacle to the institution of new social policies’ (1988: 3).

In other words, ‘the state is a predatory force, essentially the privateresource of the dominant faction of the political class which defends itspower by every means against other factions also seeking state power byevery means’ (Ake 1996: 4). In this regard, the principle of segmentaryopposition indicates that states coalesce around common objectives toform solid blocs through institutions developed for that purpose, toretain dominance in international trade and diplomacy. Hence, socialpolicy analysis represents a movement away from the medievalism thathad considered government actions as inherently good. Competingideas about the content and directions of social policy, therefore, reflectdifferent visions of society (Ladbury and Kinnear 1995). While this pes-simistic view of the state may not always be borne out in all cases, in theparticular histories of Ghana and Nigeria, its predatory character has ledto the adoption of policies that have sometimes not been perceived asserving the interests of civil society.

Colonial social policies, for instance, were clearly not formulated topromote African welfare, but were part of a comprehensive effort to con-solidate the hegemonic rule of the white settler minority class (Afonja2003: 89), by exploiting the colonized resources, expropriating surplusvalue, and expatriating local revenue. These discriminatory policieslegitimized spatial social segregation by restricting development to themetropolis. Their emphasis on the development of a few export cropspromoted rural–urban migration by identifying urban population dens-ity with manpower development.

Accordingly,

In the urban centres, the patterns of rural–urban migration have contributed to the rapid collapse of urban infrastructures in thehealth, social, educational, and employment sectors. Reversing theseflows would require reversing the effects of lopsided colonial devel-opment policies that triggered them off in the first place. (Obono2003: 247)

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During this period, the system of water, health, and sanitation provisiontook the form of sanitary inspections; dispensaries, and the provision ofpublic taps in many urban areas. Where the pipes led into privatehouses, they were metered. The 1946–56 Ten-Year Plan for Developmentand Welfare for Nigeria built on these and was an attempt at codifyingand improving on these services. It aimed at providing adequate purewater, the progressive build-up of environmental hygiene, and the expan-sion of hospital, maternity, child welfare and dispensary services (Odimegwu1998: 19).

Soon after independence, Ghana and Nigeria adopted inward-lookingtrade strategies to mitigate the effects of the outward orientation of colo-nial economic policy. But, in the neocolonial period, these ‘structurallycrippled’ economies are integrated into a system of unequal and inequitableinternational trade exchanges, and are unable to derive benefits whichthe classical free-trade approach supposedly confers on participatingcountries. Indeed, ‘As far as these structurally crippled economies areconcerned, the full application of the comparative advantage dogma. . .can only lead to further peripheralization and negative effects on produc-tion structure, income distribution, consumption profiles, etc.’ (Adalemo1993: 5).

Africa has the highest number of Structural Adjustment Programmes(SAPs) adopted since the early 1980s. Thirty-five African countries imple-mented 162 World Bank/IMF adjustment programmes from 1981 to 1999,compared to 126 SAPs in the rest of the world (Hammouda 1999: 74),with some countries running multiple SAPs. Senegal and Togo had fourSAPs each, and Côte d’Ivoire three. When Senegal attempted to termi-nate its SAP in 1984 and Mali in 1986 and 1987, following serious socialrepercussions arising from implementation, all international financialassistance ceased abruptly, forcing these countries to quickly restoretheir adjustment programmes.

8.3 Water, health and sanitation policies in Ghana and Nigeria

Ghana and Nigeria adopted World Bank- and IMF-approved SAPs in1983 and 1986. All of Ghana’s post-independence economy has reflectedthe quality of international fiscal advice it received since it became amember of the IMF on 20 September 1957, soon after independence.The country is currently implementing at least 23 World Bank-financedoperations representing commitments of $1.05 billion. Only 10 countries

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in the world are implementing a larger number of World Bank projects.These operations represent a comprehensive decentralization and priva-tization programme. As Table 8.1 shows, there is a heavy populationconcentration in the rural areas. It follows that water, health, and sani-tation services will not reach most people. By 1986, signals of things tocome were sent off by the lowering of tariff, relaxation of most importand price controls, and the adoption of a new Mining Code. A fully flex-ible exchange rate was introduced in 1992. Coffee trade was liberalized.State enterprise law was enacted. The new Investment Code, the liberal-ization of the current account and capital inflows, and the establish-ment of the free trade zone programme followed in 1994.

The response has been growing dissent in civil society. The mainissues of concern in Ghana and Nigeria are the social consequences ofSAP: marginalization through regional inequity; land conflicts; environ-mental degradation; rapid urbanization; denudation of rural productiveforces; rising crime; and gender imbalances. Table 8.2 shows the inci-dence of poverty and poverty reduction, 1991/92–1998/99.

Continuous African divestiture of state control over trade and invest-ment policies and fiscal reforms occurs at a time when, in the West,trade protectionism is the philosophy behind standard economic prac-tice. The accelerated divestiture programme, which was launched in1995, economically targeted significant state-owned enterprises (SOEs),including the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) and AshantiGoldfields, Ltd. Price subsidies on agricultural inputs were removed in1998. The independent utilities commission was established. The fol-lowing year, value-added tax (VAT), partial implementation of universalTaxpayer Identification Numbers, and Medium Term ExpenditureFramework for budget were introduced. Partial or full privatization of255 SOEs was authorized by the end of 2000. Cocoa export trade waspartially opened to private firms in 2001. The special import tax wasrescinded in 2002. Sweeping civil service reforms were initiated in both1987 and 1995. Permission to operate was granted to private banks in1988. Credit controls were removed and liberalization of interest ratesand bank charges were introduced in 1990. Other measures included thesale of government shares in large, state-owned banks (1996); privatiza-tion of the remaining banks (1998), although three remain; closure ofthree insolvent banks; transfer of guaranteed deposits; and the creationof an Apex Bank to oversee all rural banks.

With a foreign debt in excess of $30 billion, about 70 per cent ofNigerians are poor. The gross domestic product (GDP) growth in 1999 was2.7 per cent while income per capita was $350. The Human Development

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Table 8.1 Ghana: selected social and demographic indicators

Ghana Sub-Saharan Africa Low-income countries1995–20001 1995–20001

1975 1985 1995–20001

PopulationTotal population, mid-year (millions) 9.8 12.6 18.1 619.9 2,345.5Growth rate (annual average in %) 2.2 3.6 2.4 — 2.0Urban population (population in %)2 8.8 9.4 37.2 32.9 30.8Total fertility rate (births per woman) 6.6 6.4 4.4 5.5 3.8Population age structure (%)0–14 years 45.5 45.5 44.1 44.5 37.615–64 years 52.0 51.8 53.3 52.5 58.165 and above 2.5 2.7 3.1 2.9 4.3

Life expectancy at birth (years)Total 51.2 55.2 59.0 48.2 58.7Male 49.6 53.5 57.5 47.0 57.8Female 52.9 56.9 60.7 49.4 59.7

MortalityInfant (per 1,000 live births) 103 85 56.4 94.0 78.4Under age 5 (per 1,000 live births) 172 138 107.0 158.8 116.1Adult (aged 15–59)Male (per 1,000 population) 430 367 297.0 471.6 283.8Female (per 1,000 population) 355 302 249.0 424.9 252.4

IncomeGross national income per capita (US$) 310 360 380.0 511.7 423.3Consumer price index (1995–2000) 6 8 204.0 118.8 124.5Food price index (1995–2000) — 8 149.7 121.3 —

(Continued)

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Ghana Sub-Saharan Africa Low-income countries1995–20001 1995–20001

1975 1985 1995–20001

Social indicatorsPublic expenditure (% of GDP)Health — — 1.6 2.3 1.2Education 4.6 2.5 3.0 — 3.7Social security and welfare — — 1.4 — —

Health and nutritionAccess to safe water(% of population in 1990)Total — 56.0 64.0 55.4 70.3Urban — 83.0 87.0 81.9 89.4Rural — 43.0 49.0 41.4 63.6Immunization rate (% of population in 1990)MeaslesDPT

Poverty incidence (% of population below the poverty line)3 1991/92 1998/99National head count 50.8 42.6 — —Urban head count index 27.5 22.8 — —Rural head count index 62.4 51.6 — —

1 Latest available data in the period 1995–2000; 2 Percentage of population living in agglomerations with 1 million inhabitants or more; 3 Poverty lineestimated at c9000,000 a year at mid-1992. Based on the living standards surveys conducted by the Ghana Statistical Services in collaboration with theWorld Bank during 1991–2 and 1998–9.Sources: Ghana Statistical Services, Quarterly Digest of Statistics; IMF, International Financial Statistics.

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Table 8.2 Incidence of poverty and poverty reduction, 1991/2–1998/9

Poverty incidence 1998/9 Regional

1991/92 1998/99 Change Consumption Income contribution to

growth redistributionpoverty

By main activityPublic sector employment 35.0 23.0 �12.0 — — —Private formal employment 30.0 11.0 �19.0 — — —Private informal sector 39.0 25.0 �14.0 — — —Export farming 64.0 39.0 �25.0 — — —Food crop farming 68.0 59.0 �9.0 — — —Non-farm self-employment 38.0 29.0 �9.0 — — —Non-working 19.0 20.0 1.0 — — —

By regionAccra 23.1 3.8 �19.3 �12.6 �10.3 1.0Urban coastal 28.3 24.2 �4.1 �11.8 8.0 5.0Urban forest 25.8 18.2 �7.0 �11.2 0.0 5.0Urban savannah 37.8 43.0 5.2 6.5 �1.7 5.0Rural coastal 52.0 45.2 �7.3 �9.8 1.8 17.0Rural forest 61.6 38.0 �23.6 �23.3 �1.6 30.0Rural savannah 73.0 70.0 �3.0 �5.0 1.6 37.0All Ghana 51.7 39.5 �12.2 �13.8 0.1 100.0

(Percentage of population in poverty, unless otherwise indicated).Source: Ghana Statistical Services (2000).

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Index (HDI), which measures the incidence of human poverty in a coun-try, for Nigeria, is 0.456. Active colonization of this country began with thearrival of the Portuguese in 1470 and an exchange of embassies betweenthem and the Oba of Benin in 1486. By the middle of the sixteenth cen-tury, several British firms had established trading posts along the coastas bases for the slave trade and preliminary trade in local commercialgoods and products. With the prohibition of 1815, British influencegrew and the erstwhile slaving companies metamorphosed into tradersin palm oil and other raw materials. The 1879 amalgamation of four Britishfirms as the United African Company (UAC) ended internal British traderivalry, and enabled the British to resist competition from French com-panies, which were at that time signing treaties with local rulers on theNiger Coast. Against this background, modern liberal democracy is acontinuation of the colonial and slave trading economies.

Put differently, the slave trade has been replaced by an enslaving traderegime. As a phenomenon, therefore, globalization has been in existencefor up to 500 years. As participants at the ‘Symposium on RethinkingBretton Woods from an African Perspective’ organized by the Council forthe Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) noted,it dates back to the rise and development of trade with commercial empiresseeking outlets for their merchandise. As such, ‘Globalization was not theresult of a plot or even a plan. It was caused by people acting with intent –seeking new economic opportunities, creating new institutions, trying tooutflank political and economic opponents’ (Brecher et al. 2000: 1–2).

Although Brecher and his associates were describing conditions that areless than 25 years old, they might as well have been offering an analysisof the predatory instincts of early slavers and colonial mercantilists. Inother words, from the Berlin Conference (1884–5) to the Bretton WoodsConference (1944), production internationalization has been accompan-ied by ‘efforts and projects to transcend the nation-state as the regulatorand manager of political and economic order’ (Hammouda 1999: 72).Globalization (like colonization) thus subverts the will of the people bymaking the expression and protection of that will through the Africanstate impossible.

Nigeria’s initial SAP, adopted on 27 June 1986, was to last until 30 June1988. After 1992, it adopted a policy of guided deregulation, trade liber-alization and export promotion based on ‘the very persuasive finding ofthe World Bank to the effect that there is a strong positive correlationbetween outward orientation and the performance of an economy. . .[despite the fact that] the same studies state quite clearly that while thenature of the relationship is clear, the direction is not so clear’ (Adalemo


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1993: 14). In implementing SAP, Nigeria reduced or eliminated consumersubsidies and other social expenditures; increased interest rates to attractforeign capital and raise domestic savings; heavily devalued the naira;and reduced the money supply. In the short to medium term, it intensi-fied export crop production; preferred private sector economic activityto the public control of productive forces; and allocated resources accord-ing to market forces; all in accordance with IMF and World Bank recom-mendations. The relationships between SAP and water, health andsanitation policies in Nigeria and Ghana are described below.

Ghana and Nigeria have dismal records on health, water, and sani-tation policy development. Until recently, Nigeria was listed among fivecountries likely to run short of water in the next 25 years. About 30 percent of Ghanaians lack access to safe water and 68 per cent lack sani-tation services, and most of the diseases seen in Ghana’s clinics arewater-related. For many years, the World Bank and the IMF have pushedthe Ghanaian government to increase consumer fees for water and leasethe water system to transnational water corporations. A current ‘full costrecovery’ pricing plan endorsed by the IMF raised water prices by 95 percent in Ghana in May 2001 (Results 2003).

Under the aegis of CAP of Water, a cross-section of Ghanaian civil soci-ety opposes these moves. According to Population Action International(Karikari n.d.: 3), per capita available renewable freshwater in Ghanawas about 9,204 cubic metres in 1955. By 1990, it declined to 3,529 cubicmetres and could drop further to 1,400 cubic metres, well within thezone of water stress, by 2025. The official government policy since inde-pendence has been to provide water to the citizens at the lowest possi-ble cost, with the Ghana Water and Sewerage Corporation (GWSC) asthe sole responsible authority. By 1960, 33.7 per cent of urban Ghanaand 10.8 per cent of the rural population were covered, but the incorp-oration of the rural water supply division into the GWSC in 1965 sloweddown the progress of rural supply just as government financial inputinto the water sector began to decline. By the late 1980s, 93 per cent ofGhanaian communities had access to piped, but sometimes unsafe, drink-ing water, with 20 per cent in the rural areas. About 30 per cent haddrilled wells with hand pumps or dug wells (Karikari, n.d.: 3). By the endof 1990, 49 per cent of Ghanaians had access to clean and safe water.

International plans to privatize the urban water system led to theNational Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Conference at Kokrobite in1991, and the establishment of the Community Water and SanitationDivision (CWSD), in 1994. The conference recommended ‘demand-driven programmes with self-selection and commitment by communities

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to enhance sustainability’. Communities would bear the costs of estab-lishing and maintaining their water resources, whose managementwould leave the orbit of state control for the monopoly of private com-panies. Citizens’ groups have been unable to obtain copies of prospect-ive lease contracts between the Government and water multinationalsto ascertain whether or how their interests would be protected throughdifferent options (Citizens’ Network on Essential Services 2003: 1).

Table 8.3 shows rural–urban differences in water supply and sani-tation in Ghana and Nigeria in 1990–2000.

Consistently for all water indices, Nigeria lagged behind Ghana. TheNigerian Fourth National Development Plan of 1981–85 noted that ‘theproblem of water supply includes inadequate supply and distributionnetwork and low quality of water itself’ (Nigeria 1981). The Federal Ministryof Water Resources was created in 1975. The following year 11 River BasinDevelopment Authorities (RBDAs) were established to complement theexisting water boards.

About 86 per cent of the supply went to urban areas. The number ofcommunities with pipe-borne water increased from 67 communities in1960 to 350 in 1985, due to deliberate state policy to provide water tomore rural areas through RBDA activities (Adeniji 1985: 33). Boreholeswere drilled from 1979 to 1983 in an exercise characterized by massivefraud, corruption, and technical incompetence. Urban coverage stood at78 per cent in 1990. By 1985, only 34.5 per cent of the existing 19 stateshad access to piped water. By 1994, the proportion of households using

Table 8.3 Water supply and sanitation in Ghana and Nigeria, 1990–2000

Event Ghana Nigeria

1990 2000 1990 2000

Total population (‘000s) 15,128 20,213 87,030 111,506Urban population (‘000s) 5,124 7,753 30,470 49,050Rural population (‘000s) 10,004 12,460 56,560 62,456% urban water supply coverage 83 87 78 81% rural water supply coverage 43 49 33 39% total water supply coverage 56 64 49 57% urban sanitation coverage 59 62 77 85% rural sanitation coverage 61 64 51 45% total sanitation coverage 60 63 60 63

Source: Global Water Supply and Sanitation Assessment 2000 Report.

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streams, ponds and other sources of water stood at 34.2 per cent nation-ally. Little progress had been recorded in 10 years.

Table 8.4 shows differences between high-income and low-incomecountries on some health indices. There is a positive correlation betweenthe level of health expenditure and key health indices. High-incomecountries have an expectation of life that is 21.3 years higher than low-income countries. Mean infant mortality rate (IMR) for the high-incomecountries just over a decade ago was 6.6, relative to 80 infant deaths per1,000 population in low-income countries, although IMR in Ghanadropped significantly from 80 per 1,000 live births in 1993 to 56 in 2002.

In 1994, the World Bank was at an advanced stage in plans to institutecost-recovery policies in the health sector, and insisted that reforms beexecuted in three phases. Short-term actions, which mainly fell uponthe public domain, included formulating health policies, initiatingreforms, and assessing the level of donor participation. Medium-termactions supported training programmes, reallocated larger shares of fundsto health centres and first-referral hospitals, implemented cost sharing,and ensured that donor funding reinforced national strategies. Long-term actions included progressive expansion of the health system into aself-sustaining sector (World Bank 1994: 18). The IMF’s argument forthese reforms is that public health expenditure is ‘[not] a productiveinvestment for human development and economic growth, but an unnec-essary financial burden and expense which governments should avoid’(Cornerhouse 2003).

Accordingly, Nigeria introduced drastic cuts in public health expend-iture. Federal commitment to the sector dropped to 0.2 per cent of GDPin 2004 (Ali-Akpajiak and Pyke 2003: 5). Ghana’s health expenditurealso dropped from $15 in 1990 (WHO 1995: 46) to $8 or 4.2 per cent ofGDP by year ending 2000 (WHO 2002). Correspondingly, public use ofhospitals and clinics declined by half within two weeks of the introduc-tion of charges. Indeed, in Ghana, Kenya, and Nigeria, hospital birthsdeclined 46 per cent after user-charges for emergency admissions wereintroduced. In one region of Nigeria, maternal mortality rose 56 per cent.User-fees in rural clinics contributed to a doubling of Ghanaian childmortality between 1983 and 1993.

In Ghana, there is no doubt that the economic and political crises of theearly 1980s altered public spending priorities. Drugs and essential equip-ment and materials had become scarce and inadequate. Medical vehicleswere broken down. Staff motivation was low. Health expenditure as a shareof GDP declined from 0.95 per cent in 1980 to 0.35 per cent in 1983, andfrom 6.46 per cent of the national budget in 1980 to 4.38 per cent in

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Table 8.4 Comparative data for selected high-income countries and severely indebted low-income countries in 1991

WHO member Life expectancy IMR 1993 Under-five Physicians 1989–1991 Nurses 1989–1991 Health states at birth 1993 mortality expenditure

rate 1992 Number Rate per Number Rate per per capita 100,000 pop. 100,000 pop. (US$) 1990

High-income countriesFrance 77 7 9 169,051 300 — — 1,869Japan 79 5 6 204,690 164 — — 1,538USA 76 8 10 606,680 238 — — 2,765

Low-income/severely indebted countriesGhana 56 80 170 628 4 3,998 27 15Nigeria 53 95 191 17,954 17 64,503 61 10Kenya 59 65 74 1,063 5 2,692 11 16

Source: WHO (1995: 46).

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1983 (Britum, Jonah and Tay 2001: 60). Industrial strike actionby health workers led to a sharp increase in salaries, disrupting the balance hitherto maintained between salaries and drug allocations ascomponents of health expenditure. While salaries rose to 61.6 per centof health expenditure in 1994, up from 39.8 per cent in 1988–92, the share of drugs declined from 33.5 per cent in 1992 to 16.4 per centin 1994.

Structural adjustment began with the Economic Recovery Programme(ERP) of 1983–6 and, in the health sector, was initiated to remove healthsubsidies, intensify fee collection for health services, and enforce theHospital Fees Act. It reinstated ‘user-fees’ and promoted policies of fullcost recovery for drugs, staff redeployment, and rehabilitation of facil-ities. Fees for hospital beds and consultations reportedly rose in 1985, ina bid to establish a user-financed, revolving drug fund to improve andsustain availability of essential drugs at affordable prices. A legal struc-ture was established for the implementation of the Ghana HealthServices (GHS).

The development of Nigeria’s public-health services, on the otherhand, began with the 10-Year Plan for Development and Welfare forNigeria (1946–56), when treatment was required for the personnel of thecolonial service and West African Frontier Force. Post-independencehealth policies initially aimed at improving quality of life through pre-ventive and curative health services. The Basic Health Services Scheme(BHSS) was a major component of the Third National Development Plan(1975–80). It extended health services to most of the population.

Over the past 25 years, Nigeria has had two attempts at building itsnational health system. During the first period (1975–83), the healthmanpower for the services was developed, and the Schools of HealthTechnology were founded. In 1983, Primary Health Care (PHC) was rec-ognized as the cornerstone of the national health system. It incorp-orated four main implementation strategies: community participation,involvement of health-related sectors in planning and managing ser-vices, strengthening of functional integration at all levels of the healthsystem, and strengthening of the managerial process for health develop-ment. The second period (1985–92), intensified PHC implementation atlocal government area (LGA) level.

In spite of these efforts, the health care system deteriorated rapidly overthe two decades in which World Bank interest in health sector reformswas highest.

After 1992, the country went through a prolonged period of economicand political turbulence. At its height, sanctions were placed on the

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country and most bilateral donors withdrew their support to the gov-ernments in the Federation. However, these funds were thereafter directedat non-governmental organizations (NGOs) giving rise to their prolifer-ation throughout the country. These donor NGO funds were mostly ver-tical programmes predetermined by the donors (Ransome-Kuti 2002: 16).

Federal Government statistics report that health spending in 1990–8represented 1–2 per cent of GDP, although the World Bank estimates thatthe true figure is as low as 0.2 per cent for the same period. The FederalGovernment’s health budget for year ending 2000 was N——17,582 million(or 2.7 per cent of the annual federal budget). It represented an actualincrease from N——13,737 million from the previous year, but a reduction of1.8 per cent in the overall budget commitment. Table 8.5 shows publichealth expenditure in Nigeria as percentages of total government budgetfor years 1980–4, being the years before the introduction of SAP.

Table 8.6 displays the same data for the years 1985–92, when the firstphase of structural adjustment was already underway.

Table 8.7 shows the corresponding figures for 1993–2005. Tables 8.5 to 8.7 show an upward trend in public health and water expenditure in the pre-adjustment years (Table 8.5), which continued right up to theadoption of SAP in 1986, after which a decline set in (Table 8.6). The

Table 8.5 Public expenditure in water and health, 1981–4

Sector Public expenditure as calculated percentages of total government budget

1981 1982 1983 1984

Water 8.1 5.4 10.9 8.1Health 2.0 1.6 2.0 1.1

Sources: Federal Government of Nigeria, Official Gazzettes, Approved Budget Estimates and DraftSupplementary Estimates (Central Bank of Nigeria, 1983, 1985)



1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992

Health 1.99 3.11 1.35 1.82 1.50 1.43 1.80 1.99Water 1.48 1.50 0.73 1.10 1.14 0.61 1.40 1.01Mean 1.73 2.30 2.85 2.92 1.32 1.02 1.60 1.50

Source: Nigeria (1995: 46); CBN Annual Reports: Federal Government Annual Budgets (1984–1999).

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Oka Obono 239

reinitiated upward trend in Table 8.7 indicates pressures from civil soci-ety groups as civil rule was restored. Generally, however, the Nigerianhealth sector has grown out of a downward spiral of decreasing institu-tional capacity, increasing government neglect, and a poor planningculture acquired from pre-independence exclusionary trends in socialpolicy that have been reinforced by Bank-backed privatization schemesand neoliberal policies.

With respect to sanitation, those who have the least access also sufferfrom extreme poverty, ill health and an overall poor quality of life.According to the Ghana Water Supply and Sanitation Policy of 1993,‘the current environmental sanitation status of Ghana leaves much tobe desired’. The policy aimed to provide simple sewerage systems forurban areas and single household-style dry on-site systems for ruralareas and small towns. This legitimizes the spatial disparities that wereintroduced in its colonial history. Less than 40 per cent of the popula-tion of urban Ghana is served by a solid waste collection service and lessthan 30 per cent by an adequate household toilet facility. Access to safewater rose from 49.2 per cent in 1980 to 57.2 per cent in 1987, whileaccess to sanitation services rose to 30.3 per cent.

The following are among the factors responsible the state of sanitationin Ghana.

1. Lack of a clear national goal or vision of environmental sanitationas an essential social service and a major determinant of the stand-ard of living.

2. Lack of a formally constituted environmental sanitation subsectorin the governmental system of sector development planning.

3. Lack of a comprehensive policy assigning responsibilities for envir-onmental sanitation to the relevant ministries and agencies, resulting



1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001

Health 0.31 0.88 1.58 1.32 1.39 2.69 2.25 — 4.6Water 0.01 2.66 3.90 3.90 5.05 6.20 — — 7.24Mean 0.16 1.77 2.61 2.61 3.22 4.4 — — 5.92

Source: Nigeria (1995: 46); Central Bank of Nigeria Annual Reports: Federal Government AnnualBudgets (1984–1999); CBN (2002); Obadan (2003).

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in overlaps, gaps and poor coordination in the management ofprogrammes and services.

4. Lack of technical and political capacity in providing sanitationservices.

5. Inadequate budgetary allocation to the environmental sanitationsubsector.

6. Weak and/or outdated and poorly enforced environmental legislation.

In an appraisal of the policy, Yanore (1994: 1) wondered ‘whether thenoble idea of community self management will work in the midst of themany challenges ahead including socio-economic and cultural barriers,institutional and organizational difficulties’. Linking the provision ofaffordable water and sanitation with socioeconomic changes, he notedthat ‘Since 1990, there has been a proposal under a Strategic InvestmentProgramme (SIP) to transfer management responsibilities of rural watersupplies to the beneficiary communities’ (p. 1). Under SIP, governmentcreates an environment for the provision of water and sanitation ser-vices, but not funding.

Nigeria’s sanitation policy is uncoordinated, discontinuous and inef-fective. The three levels of government share responsibility for waterresources management, but ‘The efforts of the various Agencies were notguided by a clear-cut sanitation policy for Nigeria’ (Nigeria 2003: 2). ANational Water Supply and Sanitation Policy (NWSSP) adopted in January2000 aimed at providing sufficient potable water and adequate sanita-tion to Nigerians at affordable prices through the participation of thethree tiers of government, the private sector, and the beneficiaries. TheNWSSP has been criticized ‘for not being adequate on sanitation and forbeing optimistic on targets set for access to water supply by years 2003,2007 and 2011, when coverage is expected to reach 60%, 80% and 100%respectively’ (Nigeria 2003: 16).

According to the NWSSP,

Due to the absence of a well thought out Sanitation Policy, the devel-opment of sanitation programmes has not made significant impact.It is estimated that 42% of the population in urban and semi-urbanareas have access to adequate water supply and sanitation. It is fur-ther estimated that about 71% of those living in rural Nigeria do nothave access to safe water and sanitation. (Nigeria 2003: 2)


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8.4 Discussion: readjusting structural adjustment

The term ‘structural adjustment’ has been defined as the implementa-tion of policies and institutional changes necessary to modify the struc-ture of an economy so as to enable it maintain both its growth rate andthe viability of its balance of payments in the medium term (Yagci et al.1985: 1). More to the point, however,

Over the past 20 years structural adjustment has become a detestedphrase among antipoverty activists . . . because World Bank structuraladjustment programs have often been the opposite of structuraladjustment. Sub-Saharan African countries are as dependent on anarrow range of primary commodities today as they were 20 yearsago, but now real world prices for those commodities are even lower.In fact, the Bank has usually acted as if there is no need to foster manu-factured exports from Africa, content to encourage greater reliance onprimary commodities. (Sachs 2001: 42)

The programme is monetarist or absorptive (Obadan and Ekhuerhare1993), with the former more prevalent in West Africa. SAP was designed‘to expand production frontiers of the economy while maintaining a min-imal rate of inflation. . . [by] removing distortions in the economy throughreliance on market forces’ (Ekpo 1996: ix). It failed. Pre-adjustment periodsin Nigeria (1980–5) show low inflationary growth, although the econ-omy still faced problems of capacity underutilization of existing capitalstock, low capital investment and low propensity to save.

Founded in 1945, the IMF is one of the most powerful actors in theglobal economy. Together with the International Bank for Reconstructionand Development (IBRD) – the World Bank – it originated from theUnited Nations Monetary and Financial Conference at Bretton Woods,New Hampshire, in July 1944, as an aftermath of the Second World War.It was established to oversee European reconstruction and development.Indeed, the word ‘Development’ in IBRD was added almost as an after-thought because ‘At the time, most of the countries in the developingworld were still colonies, and what meager economic development effortscould or would be undertaken were considered the responsibility of theirEuropean masters’ (Stiglitz 2002: 11).

The National Health Insurance Scheme in Nigeria presages full imple-mentation of these ‘regressive policies’. Ghana’s letter of intent to theIMF sought to ‘finalize its transitional pricing policy for electricity and

Oka Obono 241

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water – including automatic adjustment formulae to reflect changes incedi costs of imported inputs and a timetable for movement to full costrecovery – with a view to beginning implementation by end-April 2002’(Ghana 2002: 6). It is now clear that ‘SAP has led to subsidizing the eco-nomic development of industrialized countries’ (Ezenwe 1993: 117). Butthe African state also plays a role in its own domination. In other words,

The time has apparently come for Third World countries to blame theirdevelopment impotence not only on imperialism, colonialism andneo-colonialism but also on their own weak domestic socio-political ifnot ideological foundations, administrative and moral laxity, corrup-tion and lack of an internal capacity to resist outside pressures. MostThird World countries are not active on the international scene partlybecause of past imperial exploitation, but also because they have failedto learn any lessons from their unfavourable and unsatisfactory histor-ical relations with the Western industrial world. (Kodjo 1993: 79)

In addition,

The collapse of the economies of most African countries in the lastdecade and half . . . should have forced us to a deeper reflection.Instead, we have all become numbed by the greater disaster of theStructural Adjustment Programme which, in essence, is applying aneven heavier dose of neo-classical economic principles to a situationwhich had been caused in the first place by the same unreflectingapplication of these principles. (Mabogunje 1995: 6–7)

In incorporating the elements of education, technology, and a healthy pop-ulation into policy formulation, structural adjustment programmes shoulddeliberately be oriented around the goal of export diversification (Sachs2001). It is in terms of such a reorientation that such policies can accom-plish greater ends for the countries in whose interests they were formulated.

8.5 Summary and conclusion

This chapter reviewed the collaboration of the African state with theWorld Bank and IMF in the formulation of water, health and sanitationpolicies in Nigeria and Ghana. It examined how the privatization of watersupply increases health suffering among the poor and argued that SAPlocalizes external interests and externalizes local interests. Alongside theneed to recognize the role of colonization and multinational companiesin regional underdevelopment, it is just as necessary to examine internal


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Oka Obono 243

factors that are conducive to exploitation. At the economic level, a strongexport diversification programme is recommended, while free or subsi-dized water, health and sanitation services should be provided in theshort term. Ghana and Nigeria must first be transformed into middle-income or high middle-income countries before privatization can bene-fit their population. A policy of premature privatization will producelong-term privations among citizens, especially the poorer classes.

Finally, in coastal Africa, water is more than something drunk, usedfor cooking, washing, or for generating hydroelectric energy. It meansmore. Water is central to the discourse of peoplehood and identity.Commoditizing it erodes its significance in these respects. Change hereshould be properly thought through. The state should recommit itself tothe minimum requirement of good governance by protecting the rightsof that population to continued access to improved water, health andsanitation services.

Notes

1 In Bolivia, a World Bank water restructuring plan to raise consumer prices inCochabamba led to a public uprising against the Bank. In South Africa, theWater Affairs and Forestry Ministry admitted in October 2000 that water pri-vatization measures led to severe water cuts for people who were too poor topay their accounts, and to the outbreak of cholera in KwaZulu-Natal.

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Index

247

Adésíná, Jìmì O. xiv, xix, 1–49adjustment policies

administrative capacity 5SAPs see structural adjustment

programmesAfrican unity 8, 62, 63, 75Afrocentrism 8Afro-pessimism 6AIDS see HIV/AIDSAlma Ata declaration (1978) 176, 182Amin, Idi 16, 65, 92, 93, 95Arusha Declaration (1967) 61, 62, 179Atieno, Rosemary xix, 23, 24, 171–97authoritarianism, developmentalism

41

Babangida, Ibrahim 16Banda, Hastings Kamuzu 6Bardham, Pranab 115Bond, Patrick xix, 23, 25, 198–223Botswana

diamonds 3, 15–16, 205economic growth 205education policy 122–6health care 24, 27HIV/AIDS 125, 215–16literacy 18, 19political stability 122poverty 205primary school enrolment 122,

125public spending 16, 20, 27savings/investment 205secondary school enrolment 122social development 36sociopolitical structure of

accumulation 205–6unemployment 20water/sanitation 206see also Southern Africa

Bowles, Samuel 115brain drain

East Africa 99–100, 105

Nigeria 161Zimbabwe 139

Bretton Woods Institutions (BWIs)Bank see World Bankcost sharing 20, 24Ghana 16IMF see International Monetary

Fund (IMF)Nigeria 20policy-making 12, 24poverty 32, 119structural adjustment programmes

(SAPs) 119Brough, Wayne T. 60Burkina Faso 25

capacity building 12capitalism, sovereign rentier see

sovereign rentier capitalismCasablanca Group 8, 56, 62, 79Chachage, Chachage Seithy L. xix,

9, 15, 17, 20, 22, 87–111civil society

NGOs see non-governmentalorganizations

Nigeria 4social forces 5South Africa 4

Cold War 8–9, 59, 62Committee for Academic Freedom in

Africa 119–20community-based interventions

30Congo-Kinshasa 9corruption

Kenya 183Nigeria 35Tanzania 94Uganda 93

cost-sharingeducation policy 20health care 24

Côte d’Ivoire, violence 6

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de-commodification 117development

accumulation and accelerateddevelopment 88

HDI see human development indexinclusive development research

project xi–xii, 1–48international development

agreements 176social see social developmentsocial expenditure 113

development partners 59development state, democracy 4developmentalism, authoritarianism

41disaggregation, social policy

transitions 5–6

East Africabasic social services (BSS) 174–5brain drain 99–100, 105economic reform 182–7education policy 15, 87–111import substitution

industrialization (ISI) 90independence 88infant mortality 23, 174, 175,

190international development

agreements 176Kenya see Kenyalife expectancy 174macroeconomics 177–91post-reform period 187–9poverty 171–3, 192pre-reform period 178–82research problem 175–7social development 87–111,

171–97social sector performance explained

191–4structural adjustment programmes

(SAPs) 182–7study objectives 177Tanzania see Tanzaniatechnical assistance personnel 20,

22, 97–9Uganda see Ugandauniversity admissions 17, 104

East African Common ServicesOrganization (ECSO) 92

East African Community (EAC) 92,94

economic growthBotswana 205education policy 9human resources 9, 139Kenya 94, 176recovery undermined 25social development 5, 148time sensitivity 3Uganda 181Zimbabwe 139

economic reformInternational Monetary Fund (IMF)

136Kenya 182–4regressive measures 41SAPs see structural adjustment

programmesTanzania 184–5Uganda 185–7

economic structural adjustmentprogramme (ESAP)

Tanzania 185Zimbabwe 117–18, 132, 136–9,

141, 207, 217see also structural adjustment

programmes (SAPs)economic variation 3–4education policy

Botswana 122–6case studies 122–41changing dynamics 15–22commodification 102cost-sharing 20crisis of welfarism 91–7East Africa 15, 87–111economic growth 9equity of access 17gender differences 153Ghana 148–70investment 100–1, 121, 167Kenya 96–7Nigeria 148–70Nigeria (south western) 15, 16South Africa 126–32Southern Africa 112–47

248 Index

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structural adjustment programmes(SAPs) 97, 117–21

Tanzania 17, 63World Bank 100–1, 119–21Zimbabwe 16, 20, 132–41

encompassing models 31, 33external debt crisis 56, 94external shock

1980s crisis 16oil shock 16vulnerability 11, 24

Fabianism 12foreign loans 62, 183

game-theoretical framework 8, 10Garba, Abdul-Ganiyu xix–xx, 7–10,

54–86gender differences

education policy 153Ghana 161, 166labour markets 45, 154, 166literacy 18–19, 163Nigeria 154, 161, 162, 166South Africa 203see also women

General Agreement on Trade inServices (GATS) 102

Ghanabig-push strategy 11cocoa 11, 60Compulsory Universal Basic

Education Programme (FCUBE)150

core poor 29, 30education disparities 161education outcomes 155–64education policy 148–70Education Reform Programme (ERP)

149–50Education Sector Analysis (ESA)

150fiscal vulnerability 11formal sector employees 29gender differences 161, 166health insurance 29–30higher education 150, 160–1HIPC funds 30labour outcomes 164–8

labour policy 153–4literacy 150, 158, 159, 163National Liberation Council (NLC)

15, 16oil 4political instability 149poverty 155, 231primary school enrolment 158–60public spending 16, 17, 20, 156–8quality of education 163–4secondary school enrolment

158–60social development 38social policy 148–70social/demographic indicators

229–31stabilization and liberalization 11,

15, 16structural adjustment 20, 149–50,

227user charges 18, 161water/sanitation 224–45

gross capital formation 12, 14, 15gross domestic savings 12, 14, 15Guinea 25

health careBotswana 24, 27changing dynamics 22–31cost-sharing 24frivolous use 25–6insurance schemes 28–30Kenya 187Malawi 26Nigeria 27, 28–9per capita expenditure 28Primary Health Care (PHC)

declaration (Alma Ata, 1978)176, 182

resource endowment 23retrenchment of provisioning

23–4, 27social dimension of adjustment

(SDA) 24social insurance 28–30Southern Africa 213–17structural adjustment programmes

(SAPs) 26–7Tanzania 63, 99

Index 249

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health care (Contd.)user charges 24, 25–6Zimbabwe 23, 27

Hendricks, Fred T. xx, 20, 112–47higher education

admissions see universityadmissions

East Africa 87–111Ghana 150, 160–1income generation 104–5labour markets 97–106marketable goods 105Nigeria 151, 152, 161, 167–8private provision 103–4, 121standards 17, 95, 96, 97, 103, 105

HIV/AIDSBotswana 125, 215–16health care provisioning 27health policy 213–17South Africa 203, 214–15Tanzania 189Zimbabwe 216–17

human development index (HDI)Kenya 171, 172Nigeria 232Tanzania 171, 172Uganda 171, 172

humiliation 34Hutchful, E. 15, 16

import substitution industrialization(ISI) 90

inclusive development, researchproject xi–xii, 1–48

income distribution, povertyreduction 114–15

industrial policy 43inequality

distribution issues 119Kenya 181, 192poverty 31–40, 114–15Tanzania 192Uganda 192Zimbabwe 132–3

infant mortality 21, 22–3, 174, 175,190

informal reciprocity networks 30International Development

Association (IDA) 183

international financial institutions(IFIs)

critique 118poverty 155

International Labour Organization140, 154, 155

International Monetary Fund (IMF)economic reform 136Ghana 11, 15, 16Kenya 183SAPs see structural adjustment

programmesSouthern Africa 117–19see also Bretton Woods Institutions

(BWIs)international relations, asymmetry

61–2

Kanbur, Ravi 115Katanga 9Kenya

autocracy 6basic social services (BSS) 184corruption 183decentralization 181District Focus for Rural

Development (DFRD) 181economic crisis 183economic decline 181economic growth 94, 176economic reform 182–4education policy 96–7Enhanced Structural Adjustment

Facility (ESAF) 183Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

90–1health care 187human development index (HDI)

171, 172human poverty index (HPI) 172,

173inequality 181, 192infant mortality 23, 174, 175, 190International Monetary Fund (IMF)

183literacy 19macroeconomics 178, 180–1,

182–4, 187–8Nairobi University (NU) 89, 105

250 Index

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post-reform period 187–8public spending 187–8quick-disbursing aid 183settler colony 89social development 39structural adjustment loan (SAL)

183structural adjustment programmes

(SAPs) 182–4technical assistance personnel 20,

22, 98university admissions 96water/sanitation 188, 190–1see also East Africa

Kenyatta, Jomo 6Keynes, John Maynard 7, 67, 74–7Keynesian paradigm

equity/efficiency 67–8guardian state 76innovations 68–70laissez-faire 68paradoxes 76short-run analysis 75social policy 67–71, 74–7

Ki-Zerbo, Joseph 41

labour marketsbrain drain see brain draingender differences 45, 154, 166higher education 97–106unskilled labour 100

Lagos Plan of Action (1980) 8, 43late industrializers xiileadership 44–5Lewis, Stephen 26–7liberation movements, opportunity

costs 65–6literacy

Botswana 18, 19gender differences 18–19, 163Ghana 150, 158, 159, 163Kenya 19Nigeria 158, 159, 162, 163South Africa 18–21, 131Zimbabwe 19

Lumumba, Patrice 9, 54

macroeconomicscore paradigm 54

deflation 20East Africa 177–91effects 189–91Kenya 178, 180–1, 182–4, 187–8outcomes 4, 5policy directions 6public spending 24, 26social policy 3, 5, 45, 72, 177–91structural adjustment 26Tanzania 178, 179–80, 184–5, 189Uganda 178, 181–2, 185–7, 188–9

Mafeje, A. 143–4Malawi

autocracy 6health care 26

Margolis, Eric 60market failure, social welfare 24markets

efficiency 116invisible hand 113, 115–16

Marshall, T.H. 87Mbeki, T. 143, 203means-testing, humiliation 34, 43microeconomics

core paradigm 54social policy 72

Millennium Development Goals(MDGs) 18, 176, 193

Mkandawire, Thandika xi–xiii, 9, 15,32, 34, 66, 113, 116, 119, 148,171

Mobutu Sese Seko 23Monrovia Group 8, 56, 79moral commitment, anti-colonialism

8Mugabe, Robert 132, 141, 206, 208Museveni, Youveri 23, 42Myrdal, Gunnar 113

nation building 9, 10, 41, 43national unity 9–10nationalism

altruism 66authoritarianism 41centralization 63challenges and strategies 61–2core ideas 60–2discourse and paradigm 7–8, 60–7ethnicity 9

Index 251

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nationalism (Contd.)evaluation 63–7feasibility 63, 75moral standards 61neocolonialism 62, 63, 66, 75notion of development 61people-centred 61, 63power aggregating strategies 62social development 60–7socialism 63strategic preferences 54–5

neoclassical economicscounter-revolutionary view 67,

71–4orthodox policy advice 59ruling ideas 7social development 67–74synthesis 74see also Keynesian paradigm

neocolonialismimpact 148nationalism 62, 63, 66, 75

Nigeriabrain drain 161civil society 4corruption 35curricula 151dependency burden 166education disparities 162education outcomes 155–64education policy 148–70Education Sector Analysis (ESA)

153formal sector employees 29gender differences 154, 161, 162,

166Gross Domestic Product (GDP) 4health care 27, 28–9higher education 151, 152, 161,

167–8human development index (HDI)

232labour outcomes 164–8labour policy 153–4literacy 158, 159, 162,

163military rule 151, 153National Health Insurance Scheme

(NHIS) 28–9

National Policy on Education (NPE)151, 152

oil 4political instability 149poverty 155primary school enrolment

158–60, 162public spending 16, 17, 19, 27,

156–8quality of education 163–4secondary school enrolment

158–60self-employment 29social development 37social policy 148–70structural adjustment 20, 227,

232–3unemployment 154, 164, 167–8United Party of Nigeria (UPN)

151–2Universal Basic Education (UBE)

153Universal Primary Education (UPE)

150, 151, 162university admissions 161water/sanitation 224–45

Nigeria (south western), educationpolicy 15, 16

Nkrumah, Kwame 8, 11, 54, 60, 61,62, 149, 150

non-governmental organizations(NGOs), social provision xii

Nyerere, Julius Kambarage (Mwalimu)6, 8, 23, 54, 60, 61, 62, 179

Obasanjo, Olusegun 153Obono, Oka xx, 224–45Obote, Milton 93, 181Ohiorhenuan, J.F.E. 41Okuonzi, S.A. 24, 25, 26, 27–8Organization of African Unity,

minimalist project 8Organization of Petroleum Exporting

Countries (OPEC) 78

pan-Africanism 8, 62, 63, 65–6pensions

employment-based 2, 7funding 2

252 Index

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social insurance 29–30South Africa 33Type I error (under-coverage) 33

Polanyi, Karl 115policy advice

regimes 10World Bank 11

policy-makingdonors 11, 12reconstituting state 44sovereign rentier capitalism

10–11, 27, 32, 67, 77–9political unions 8poverty

Botswana 205Bretton Woods Institutions (BWIs)

32, 119deserving poor 24, 32, 33, 34East Africa 171–3, 192escalation 5Ghana 155, 231inequality 31–40, 114–15international financial institutions

(IFIs) 155Nigeria 155social development crisis 2South Africa 33, 131, 132United States 31variation 4Zambia 4Zimbabwe 4

Primary Health Care (PHC)declaration (Alma Ata, 1978)176, 182

primary school enrolmentBotswana 122, 125Ghana 158–60Nigeria 158–60, 162outcomes 3Uganda 18, 28universal access 15Zimbabwe 133–4

private wealth 99public reasoning 1public spending

Botswana 16, 20, 27Ghana 16, 17, 20, 156–8Kenya 187–8macroeconomics 24, 26

Nigeria 16, 17, 19, 27, 156–8South Africa 16–17structural adjustment programmes

(SAPs) 20Zimbabwe 20, 27, 133, 136–7

Raftopoulos, B. 134, 135, 137, 140Rawlings, Jerry 16redistribution, paradox 31research project

background 2–7conceptual and methodological

framework 4–7inclusive development xi–xii,

1–48social policy context 7–40

retrenchment of provisioninghealth care 23–4, 27social policy 33

Saachikonye, L. 139Schultz, Theodore 121secondary school enrolment

Botswana 122ethnicity 10Ghana 158–60Nigeria 158–60outcomes 3Zimbabwe 133, 135

Sen, Amartya 1, 34, 41Shem, Alfred Ouma xx, 171–97social cohesion 31social development

controlled path dependence 56East Africa 87–111, 171–97economic growth 5, 148evolution of advice 55–60foreign capital 55–6indicators 12, 13nationalism 60–7neoclassical economics 67–74orthodox development 56radar charts 36–9role of state 118ruling ideas 7–15, 54–86Southern Africa 112–47

social dimension of adjustment (SDA)health care 24Zimbabwe 137–8

Index 253

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social expenditure, development113

social insurancehealth care 28–30pensions 29–30self-financing 33unemployment benefits 22

social policybudgetary allocation 114context 7–40cost-recovery 24definition 1–2, 55, 171development context 113–17,

226–7disaggregation 5–6dual delivery 35East Africa 87–111, 171–97entitlement failure 40Ghana 148–70implementation 114inclusive development 40–6Keynesian paradigm 67–71, 74–7macroeconomics 3, 5, 45, 72,

177–91microeconomics 72Nigeria 148–70pragmatism 87regime and access 31–40rethinking 42–6ruling ideas 7–15, 54–86social and political context 5Southern Africa 112–47targeted models 31–2working definition 55

social provisioning 30, 42sociopolitical structure of

accumulationBotswana 205–6historical features 199–202political economic dynamics

202–8South Africa 202–5Southern Africa 198–223Zimbabwe 206–8

South AfricaAfrican National Congress (ANC)

142agriculture 3Child Support Grant (CSG) 33

civil society 4Communist Party 142Congress of South African Trade

Unions (COSATU) 128, 142democratic change 126–32education policy 126–32feeding schemes 127further education and training (FET)

130gender differences 203Gross Domestic Product (GDP) 4Growth, Employment and

Redistribution (GEAR) 117,142–3

HIV/AIDS 203, 214–15Human Resource Development

Strategy 128–30literacy 18–21, 131National Economic Development

and Labour Council (NEDLAC)130–1

Nelson Mandela Foundation 127pensions 33post-Apartheid 16–17, 126–7, 203,

204post-colonial phase 6poverty 33, 131, 132public spending 16–17Sector Education and Training

Authorities (SETAs) 128–9,131–2

social development 36sociopolitical structure of

accumulation 202–5Type I error (under-coverage) 33unemployment 20, 22, 131, 202,

203unemployment benefits 22user charges 25water/sanitation 25, 210–11

South African DevelopmentCommunity (SADC) 142

South African DevelopmentCoordination Conference(SADCC) 132

Southern AfricaBotswana see Botswanacase studies 122–41education policy 112–47

254 Index

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education as social policy 117–21health care 213–17International Monetary Fund (IMF)

117–19social policy 112–47sociopolitical structure of

accumulation 198–223structural adjustment programmes

(SAPs) 117–21water policy 208–13Zimbabwe see Zimbabwe

sovereign rentier capitalismdonor environment 11, 27, 77euthanasia 68, 75meaning 10–11neoliberalism 32policy-making 10–11, 27, 32, 67,

77–9Revised Minimum Standard Model

78scarcity value 77

stabilization and liberalizationGhana 11, 15, 16shift to adjustment 24

Stiglitz, Joseph 118–19structural adjustment programmes

(SAPs)Bretton Woods Institutions (BWIs)

119East Africa 182–7education 97, 117–21free market policies 88Ghana 20, 149–50, 227health care 26–7Kenya 182–4Nigeria 20, 227, 232–3public spending 20readjustment 241–2shift to adjustment 24Southern Africa 117–21stabilization compared 120Tanzania 184–5Uganda 185–7Zimbabwe 117–18, 132, 136–9,

141, 207

Tanzaniaagriculture 179balance of trade 93, 94

commodity prices 63, 65corruption 94cost–sharing 185Dar es Salaam University (UDSM)

89, 90, 95–6, 104destabilization 63, 65economic crisis 94, 180, 184–5economic reform 184–5education policy 17, 63health care 63, 99HIV/AIDS 189human development index (HDI)


173inequality 192infant mortality 23, 174, 175, 190institutional dynamism 17invasion by Uganda (1978) 16,

65–6, 92, 94literacy 19macroeconomics 178, 179–80,

184–5, 189manufacturing 15, 91, 93maternal mortality 23, 190nationalism 60post-reform period 189privatization 185public employment 22, 185re-commodification 17self-reliance 63social development 39, 63socialism 179structural adjustment 184–5summary statistics 64–5technical assistance personnel 22,

98Ujamaa 6, 15, 179, 180villagization 23, 179water/sanitation 189, 190–1see also East Africa

targeted social policyadministrative costs 33–4models 31–2Type I error (under-coverage) 33Type II error (leakage) 33

technical assistance personnel 20,22, 97–9

terms of trade, commodities 91

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time sensitivityeconomic growth 3social policy transitions 5–6trade discourse 42Tshombe, Moise 9

Udegbe, Bola xx, 148–70Uganda

agriculture 3Asian expulsions 16, 93, 182basic social services (BSS) 182,

186, 187civil war 23, 65–6, 93, 182corruption 93donor dependence 186economic crisis 93, 94–5economic growth 181economic reform 185–7Gross Domestic Product (GDP) 91human development index (HDI)


173inequality 192infant mortality 23, 174, 175, 190institutional dynamism 17invasion of Tanzania (1978) 16,

65–6, 92, 94macroeconomics 178, 181–2,

185–7, 188–9Makerere University (MU) 16, 17,

18, 89, 95, 104maternal mortality 23, 190post-reform period 188–9primary school enrolment 18, 28social development 38socialism 181–2structural adjustment programmes

(SAPs) 185–7university admissions 95water/sanitation 188–9, 190–1see also East Africa

unemploymentbenefits 22Botswana 20Nigeria 154, 164, 167–8South Africa 20, 22, 131, 202, 203university graduates 20, 167Zimbabwe 137, 138, 207

United Statespoverty 31Treasury Department 118

Universal Primary Education (UPE)150, 151, 162

universalism 32university admissions

East Africa 17, 104ethnicity 10Kenya 96Nigeria 161Uganda 95see also higher education

user chargesadministrative costs 33–4counter-productive impact 25education policy 18exemption 34Ghana 18, 161health care 24, 25–6South Africa 25Zimbabwe 18, 137

Washington Consensus 12water/sanitation

Botswana 206Ghana 224–45international conventions 192–4Kenya 188, 190–1Nigeria 224–45South Africa 25, 210–11Tanzania 189, 190–1Uganda 188–9, 190–1water policy 208–13Zimbabwe 212–13

welfare state, late industrializers xiiwomen

care economy 23–4literacy 18–19, 163maternal mortality 23, 190vulnerability 34

World Bankaccumulation and accelerated

development 88community empowerment 30education policy 100–1,

119–21policy advice 11policy critique 118

256 Index

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SAPs see structural adjustmentprogrammes

social policy 32sovereign rentier capitalism 78Zimbabwe 137–8see also Bretton Woods Institutions

(BWIs)World Summit for Social

Development (WSSD) (1995)176, 194

World Trade Organization (WTO),education policy 102

Zaire, infant mortality 23Zambia

fiscal vulnerability 11mining 9poverty 4

Zimbabweagriculture 3brain drain 139curricula 140decolonization 132, 133, 134, 139delegitimization of the state 139,

141economic crisis 137, 138, 139, 141economic growth 139economic structural adjustment

programme (ESAP) 117–18,132, 136–9, 141, 207, 217

education policy 16, 20, 132–41health care 23, 27HIV/AIDS 216–17inequality 132–3literacy 19manufacturing 207political crisis 139, 208post–colonial phase 6, 132–3poverty 4Presidential Commission (1998)

140primary school enrolment

133–4public spending 20, 27, 133,

136–7secondary school enrolment 133,

135social development 37social dimension of adjustment

(SDA) 137–8sociopolitical structure of

accumulation 206–8unemployment 137, 138, 207user charges 18, 137Vocational Training Centres (VTCs)

138water/sanitation 212–13World Bank 137–8ZIMPREST 141see also Southern Africa

Index 257

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social policy in sub-saharan african context: in search of inclusive development (social policy in a...

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