The Political Economy of the African Crisis: Gender Impacts and Responses
| DOI | 10.1177/002070209605100104 |
| Published date | 01 March 1996 |
| Author | Maria Nzomo |
| Date | 01 March 1996 |
| Subject Matter | Africa's Prospects |
MARIA
NZOMO
The
political
economy
of
the
African
crisis:
gender
impacts
and
responses
Sub
Saharan
Africa
is
the world's
most marginal
region.
Africa
has
for
all
practical
purposes
been
dropped
from
world
affairs
...
The
world's
view
of
Africa
is
one
of
perennial
famine,
recurrent
economic
crisis,
dictatorship,
blatant
violations
of human
rights
and
gross
carnage
wreaked
by
merciless warlords.
Africa
is
perceived
as
a
region
where
the
pro-democ-
racy
movement
sweeping
other
parts
of
the
world
has
been
aborted and
subverted
...
the
very
African
leaders
who
have
proclaimed
their
commitment
to
its
realiza-
tion
have
masterminded
its
subversion
...
many
north-
ern
countries
wish
Africa
would
just
go
away.'
To
arrest
Africa's
economic
decline, the
new
consensus
prescribes glasnost
as
well
as
perestroika.
Political
democracy
and
free markets
are
the
twin
panaceas
...
Realpolitik has
doubtless
played
a
part
in
facilitating
the
democratic tendency
of
the
new
consensus.
2
By
organizing
to
meet
everyday
needs,
women
...
are
responding
to
the
fact
that
they
have
been
excluded
Institute
of
Diplomacy
and
International
Studies,
University
of
Nairobi;
Fulbright
Scholar,
African
and
Afro-American
Studies,
University
of
North
Carolina
at
Chapel
Hill.
1
Adebayo
Adedeji,
ed,
Africa
within
the
World:
Beyond
Dispossession
and
Dependence
(London:
Zed
for
Africa
Center
for
Development
and
Strategic
Studies
1993),
3.
2
Richard
Sandbrook,
The
Politics
of
Africa's
Economic
Recovery
(New
York:
Cambridge
University
Press
1993),
87.
International
Journal
LI
WINTER
1995-96
GENDER
IMPACTS
AND
RESPONSES
79
not
only
from
formal
economies
but
also
from
formal
politics.
They
are
ultimately
redefining
politics
by
seek-
ing
tangible
solutions
to
problems
caused
by
the
vaga-
ries
of
the
market
and
the
failure,
negligence
or
outright
repression
of
the
state.
3
INTRODUCTION
While
recognizing
that
Africa
is
by
no
means
homogeneous
and
the
African
condition
is
not
uniformly grim,
it
is
fair to
say
that
since
the
early
196os
when
most
of
Africa
became
independent,
the
continent
has
moved
from
crisis
to
crisis,
characterized
by
varying
degrees
of
political
instability,
economic
and
social
decline
in
human
welfare.
Until the
mid-1970s,
the
situation
was
manageable,
and
there
was
some
hope
that
Africa
could
make
the
transition
from
underdevelopment
to
development.
After
the
mid-i
970s,
the decline
became
even
more
pronounced
and
by
the
beginning
of
the
i
98os
had
developed
into
a major
crisis,
the magnitude
of
which
was
manifest
in
debt,
food,
and
energy
disasters
and
prompted
the Organization
of
African
Unity
(OAU),
the
United
Nations
Economic
Commission
for
Africa
(ECA),
international
financial
institutions
(IFIs),
and
policy
ana-
lysts
to
make
policy
interventions
prescribing
a
way
out.
But
some
of
these
prescriptions
only
made
matters
worse.
The
dete-
rioration
in
the economic
and
social
conditions
was
such
that
for
Africa
the
198os
came
to
be
known
as
the
lost
decade.
The
structural
adjustment
programmes
(SAPS)
prescribed
for
Africa
by
the
World
Bank
and
the
International
Monetary
Fund
(IMF)
came
with
strict
conditions,4
which
had
to
be
met
in
the
face
of
increasing
evidence
that
they
were
on
balance
causing
more harm than
good
to
the
African
political
econo-
mies
and
peoples.
In
particular,
the
deterioration
in
the
human
3
A.M.
Tripp, 'Gender,
political
participation
and
the transformation
of
associational
life
in
Uganda
and
Tanzania,'
African Studies
Review
37
(April
1994),
128.
4
The
SAPS
of
the
Bank
and
IMF
emphasized
deregulation of
prices
of
all
commodities
and
services, large-scale
privatization
of
public
enterprises,
and
cutbacks
in
government
expenditure
on
social
services.
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