HomeOld_PostsAfrica aren’t you tired of being cheated? — Part Nine

Africa aren’t you tired of being cheated? — Part Nine

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THE call for use of indigenous knowledge systems should not just be applied in the cultural-philosophical sense alone.
It must also apply in all areas where thinking is a prerequisite.
One such area is the development of developmental theory.
This is an area where Africans have been misled for centuries.
You go to any university in the country today.
Throw a cursory glance at their course outlines. At their core are Western models/theories of development. The texts that our children are using to understand development are almost all from Western circles – and of course the case studies focusing on non-African experiences.
Where Africa is ‘invoked’, it is almost always for the wrong reason with all its failures attributed to inability or unwillingness to apply models developed elsewhere hidden behind such verbiage as ‘international best practices’, whatever this means in real terms.
Let us demonstrate how all the Western theories of development are self-serving and far from serving Africa. If anything these western theories have been responsible for ‘the development of underdevelopment’ in Africa.
This instalment discusses how development theories have developed in succession and how, to a great extent, the succeeding theories build upon the strengths and weaknesses of preceding theories.
Classic theories of economic development form the ‘corpus’ of early historical and intellectual theorisation on why development does or fails to take place.
This essay examines these foundation theories, demonstrating how each offers valuable insights into the nature of development planning and process, and how later theories ‘recycle’ some elements of these earlier ‘paradigms’.
It also interrogates the validity of such theories to sub-Saharan Africa.
According to Conyers and Hill (1984), development is gradual change progressing through a series of stages towards some state of expansion, improvement or completeness.
In the words of Todaro and Smith (2003:110) development must be perceived as:
l A multi-dimensional process involving the (re)organisation and [re]orientation of entire economic and social systems. In addition to improvements in incomes and output, it typically involves radical changes in institutional, social and administrative structures as well as in popular attitudes and, in many cases, even customs and beliefs.
Todaro and Smith’s definition is more illuminating in that it takes development beyond the economic to encompass the social, political and cultural spheres as well.
According to Omuta (1986) ‘planning’ is a means to an end.
Conyers (1984) says it is a continuous process involving decisions or choices about alternative ways of using available resources to achieve desired goals at some time in the future.
Davidoff and Reiner [in (ed) Faludi 1991:11] argue that ‘planning is a set of procedures…a process for determining appropriate future action through a sequence of choices’.
From these definitions, it is clear that planning incorporates a notion of goals towards which specific/action should be directed.
Action is therefore the eventual outcome of planning efforts.
The question that, however, arises with regard to development in Africa is: Who does planning for the development of the sub-continent, and with what effects?
Development planning is therefore planning to achieve development where development is used in the sense of a state of being, and planning as a means of attaining this state.
Development becomes the goal of the planning process.
A theory is an idea or a set of ideas used to explain something.
Thus a theory of planning must be directed to problems of effectuation, that is the process of selecting ends and criteria, the identification of alternatives consistent with the general perspectives and the guidance of action towards determined ends.
The point that needs emphasis here though is: If ideally a theory must arise out of the imperatives of a particular situation, how many of the development theories have arisen out of the imperatives of the African situation; and if they have been developed elsewhere, to what extent can they address the developmental needs of Africa?
Todaro and Smith (2003) observe that the post-Second World War literature on economic development is dominated by four major competing theories, all developed outside Africa.
These are the linear-stages of growth model (Modernisation Theory); theories and patterns of structural change; the international dependence revolution (dependency theory) and the neo-classical, free-market counter-revolution (SAPs).
The modernisation theory is especially associated with Walt Rostow, Harrod-Domar and others.
Walt Whitman Rostow (October 7 1916-February 13 2003) was an American economist and political theorist who served as Special Assistant for National Security Affairs to US President Lyndon Johnson.
Rostow also served as a major adviser on national security affairs under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.
He is well-known for his role in the shaping of American foreign policy during the 1960s.
He was a staunch supporter of capitalism and free enterprise.
He wrote extensively in defense of free enterprise economics, particularly in developing nations.
Rostow was especially famous for writing the book The Stages of Economic Growth: A non-communist manifesto (1960) which became a classic text in several fields of social sciences.
In the 1950s Rostow argued that development is a linear path along which all countries travel towards economic growth.
Their theory is primarily an economic theory of development in which the right quantity and mixture of saving, investment and foreign aid were all that was necessary for the developing nations to proceed along an economic growth continuum that historically had been followed by more developed countries.
According to Rostow, the continuum has five stages: The first is the traditional society characterised by primitive lifestyles, low technology, hence low production and high dependence on subsistence agriculture.
The second stage is the precondition for take-off.
This is supposedly characterised by attitude changes, emergency of technology and involvement in modern science and new technology.
The take-off stage is the third.
It is characterised by rapid industrial expansion.
At this stage Rostow notes that savings in national income rise to over 10percent while investment doubles and exceeds 10 percent as attitudes and institutions are now geared towards industrial growth.
The fourth stage is called drive-to-maturity and is characterised by rapid change of economic structures as technology spreads to all areas of the economy.
This is inevitably followed by the final stage, the stage of high mass consumption. This stage is characterised by mature economies in which there is security, highest welfare and leisure; in short, where basic needs are no longer a problem.
Rostow’s assumption is that once economic growth has been established, other benefits inevitably trickle down to the rest of the economy and other variables such as culture and politics.
However, Todaro and Smith (2003:11) still argue that Rostow’s theory ‘reduces development to become synonymous with rapid aggregate economic growth’.
Rostow’s theory is complimented by Harrod-Domar’s Growth Model which describes the economic mechanism by which more investment leads to more economic growth.
According to him, in order to grow, new investments representing net additions to the capital stock are vital.
He observes that the rate of growth of GNP is determined jointly by national savings ratio and national capital output ratio.
Put simply, economies must save and invest a certain proportion of their GNP for them to grow; and the more they save and invest, the faster they grow.
The criticisms levelled against the linear-stages of growth model are many.
Politically, the determinism of the linear view rules out options of different styles of development.
Logically, it should have been clear that the co-existence of developed and less developed countries is bound to make a difference for the better or worse to the development efforts and prospects of the LDCs compared to a situation whereby everyone had started at the same time under similar conditions.
Besides, the DCs are not stagnant, so the larger the gap, the more dependent are the LDCs, and the less relevant are the lessons learnt from early starters.
Modernisation theory blames the Third World countries for their underdevelopment by ignoring drawback factors such as slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism.

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