Editorial I 
Editorial 
Development and the African crisis 
The Chinese ideogram for 'crisis' is a combination of two pictures, one for 
'opportunity', the other for 'disaster'. In the last few years it has been certainly 
true that the crisis in Africa has in reality been a disaster. Drought and famine 
have ravaged the continent for three years from 1981/82, with untold numbers 
of deaths and even greater numbers suffering drought-induced disease and 
malnutrition. Yet it is worth recalling that such drought has been selective both 
in the type of person affected (no politician or bank official has yet been found 
starving) and in the places affected (cities and towns of drought-affected 
countries have not suffered food shortages). And, severe though it is, the 
drought must not shield our eyes from examining all the causes of famine in 
tfrica, for the selectivity of its effects suggests that lack of rainfall cannot be the 
only reason. 
The recent UN Special Session on Africa, emphasised once again other 
elements in the African crisis: the vast debt burden, representing 58 percent of 
Africa's GNP, some US$340 for every person on the continent, and nineteen 
times the amount Africa receives in aid each year; the reliance on primary 
commodity exports to finance increasingly costly manufactured goods; 
economies inherited from colonialism which concentrate exports upon a 
narrow range of primary commodities (for which prices are stagnant or 
dropping) to finance the import of increasingly costly manufactured goods, 
usually imported from a very small number of countries; the population 
problem creating high urbanisation rates, and tremendous demands on social 
infrastructure and services; and finally Africa's dependency on food aid 
(which ironically may have held down food prices and allowed governments to 
de-emphasise food production). 
Of course generalisations about a continent hide great variations, just as 
aggregated data of a country hide regional differences. The famine situation 
has stabilised, but six countries - Ethiopia, Sudan, Angola, Mozambique, 
Botswana and Cape Verde - are in dire straits and require emergency food aid, 
while a few countries such as Benin, Togo, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Malawi and 
Zimbabwe have surplus for export. It is important to see how the African crisis 
can also contain the seeds of opportunity in even the most disastrous situation. 
We must, as well as reacting to emergency, do all in our power to work towards
2 Editorial 
long term solutions that will release the poor from the devastating effects of 
climate, famine and underdevelopment that many now experience. In responding 
to emergency crises, we must also think of appropriate long term strategies by 
reinforcing countries' capacities to deal with drought and famine through 
infrastructure, transport and food reserves, through appropriate training and 
through the resettlement of those displaced. 
The theme of development in Africa as a crisis with elements of both 
disaster and opportunity are reflected in our selection of articles for this issue. 
The first article by Burki presents some of the results of famine analysis, 
reminding us not only of the disproportionate effects of such disasters upon the 
poor, but identifying policy prescriptions that may help agencies move from a 
framework of offering treatment to victims to that of working with partners in 
development. 
The article by Mallya, "Successes and Failures of Rural Social Development", 
underlines the critical importance agriculture plays in African development, 
and also offers policy prescriptions, based on Tanzania's rather unhappy 
experience, for effective development of agriculture. Unfortunately for the 
needs of conceptual clarity, however, the rural agricultural sector of any 
country cannot easily be separated from urban sectors and from issues of 
urbanisation, umemployment and population. The article by Siamwiza, 
"Consequences of Rural Poverty in Relation to Urban Squatter Problems in 
Lusaka", relates development in Zambia to one marginalised group, urban 
squatters, and argues that interventions to alter the condition of urban poor 
have also exacerbated the deteriorating lifestyle of rural dwellers. The 
informal sector is often portrayed as a nostrum for the solution of urban poverty, 
but Brand's paper, "One Dollar Workplaces", in presenting the results of a 
Zimbabwean study of the so-called 'informal-sector', shows that the situation 
is much more complex. While using the concept, she concludes that the 
phenomenon is more heterogeneous than usually believed, and that policy 
must be framed within the whole socio-economic system if the root causes of 
poverty in 'one-dollar workplaces' are to be removed. 
Income-generation, a theme touched by Brand and Siamwiza, is dwelt on at 
some length by Else et al in their paper "Economic Development in the 
African Context". They argue that the practice of social development often 
underrates the importance of income-generation within projects, and even 
when given central importance projects end up at best not being able to offer 
the level of income expected by the participants, and at worst costing the 
participants rather than being a source of income. Although economic 
development is not identical to social development, nevertheless, the authors 
remind us, it is a prerequisite.
Editorial 3 
Oakley continues the debate on indicators of development initiated in our 
inaugural issue. In this "Evaluating Social Development: 'How much' or 
'How Good'?", Oakley builds on the economic base to stress the importance 
of additional and administrative concerns, and presents a list of five indicators 
by which social development projects could be monitored and evaluated.