Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Despite the implementation of several economic development blueprints in Africa for the last 60 years, the poverty rate of Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) has increased from two hundred million in 1981 to almost three hundred eighty million in 2005. Entrepreneurial creativity and ingenuity were stifled and a number of African states became unstable when ruled by despotic rulers. To revitalize Africa’s development process in the 21st century, the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) has challenged the African states to refute the intolerable conditions required by the Neo-liberal policies of the Washington Consensus to borrow capital from the International Monetary Fund, …

After adhering to the required draconian conditions laid out by the multi-lateral financial institutions, more than ever the developing borrowing countries were faced with sharply declining living standards, recurring financial crises, rampant inflation and a resulting high rate of unemployment. Then, a number of African countries halfheartedly and with little or no accountability, or transparency, relinquished total responsibility to their governments to manage and direct their economies. While pursuing the command economic system imitated from socialist countries where by the central governments played a pivotal role in planning and programming, Africa faced by ineffective policies, misuse of abundant resources and …