Sharp Objects

NEPAD -- the New Partnership for Africa's Development -- is the latest attempt to chart a new course of good governance combined with an effective development strategy for the African continent. This volume brings together some of Africa's best economists and social scientists to reflect on Africa's previous experiences with alternative paradigms to structural adjustment and related problems. The intention is to learn from the past in order to chart viable new policy directions for the future, including critically assessing the prospects for NEPAD measuring up to the challenges involved. This rich collection of essays examines a wide range of economic issues such as the importance of planning, the continuing reality of the debt crisis, and the new parameters for regional integration in the context of the global economy. Good governance is analysed, as is corporate governance. There is a special emphasis on issues of human development, including poverty, HIV/AIDS, and the refugee problem. The assumption is that the continent's decades of experience since independence embody lessons and reflect alternative policy approaches which, if properly understood, could be of real value in charting a viable future for its people -- provided African countries are set free to chart their own courses of action that address their particular circumstances and meet the social and economic needs of their own populations. The occasion for these essays was the 70th birthday of one of Africa's most eminent economists and a leading public servant -- Professor Adebayo Adedeji. Former Executive Secretary for the Economic Commission on Africa and Under Secretary General of the United Nations,scholar, and author of numerous books and papers, Adebayo Adedeji is perhaps best known for his pioneering work developing the African Alternative Framework to Structural Adjustment at a time when the damage being caused by the latter policies being imposed on Africa was only just beginning to become clear.