Economic and social disparities among the developed and developing nations have engaged the minds of many and will continue to do so. The gap between the poor and the rich nations appears to be widening. Occasionally, a dire warning is issued that unless a concerted global effort is launched to accelerate development in the poor nations the Malthusian apparition of famine, disease and war would emerge.

In the drive to obliterate the gap, the 1960s and 1970s marked an epoch characterised by intense development activity. At the academic level, a variety of new theories and blueprints were formulated, elegantly specifying how to launch an "underdeveloped" country into a "take-off" from a state of economic miasma. Among these paradigms were "The Big Push" (Nurkse, 1953), "Economic Development With Unlimited Supplies of Labour" (Lewis, 1954), "Unbalanced Growth" (Hirschman, 1960) and "Stages of Economic Growth" (Rostow, 1960).

For example, Lewis (1954) asserted:

The central problem in the theory of economic development is to understand the process by which a community which was previously saving and investing 4 or 5% of its national income or less, converts itself into an economy where voluntary saving is running at about 12 to 15% of national income or more. This is the central problem because the central fact of economic development is rapid capital accumulation".

At the institutional level, the concern for under-development and the urgency of the need for accelerating development were most championed by the United Nations. Declaring the sixties as "Development Decade" the UN proclaimed development aid to be the collective duty of the rich nations. Assistance to the poor nations was in fact conceived as a matter of moral principle and international solidarity.

The UN Charter reiterated the determination of the members "to employ international machinery for the promotion of economic advancement of all peoples". Furthermore, at the UN Conference on Trade and Development in Geneva, the General Assembly resolutions of 1960 and 1964 urged upon the rich nations a contribution of 1% of their national income to development assistance. Two decades later, a harrowing consensus has replaced the optimism that prevailed in the sixties.

Except for a pitifully small number of Third World countries -- the "Asian Tigers," Chile and possibly Colombia -- the development record scarcely lived up to expectations. After providing the developing world with nearly $400 billion over the past four decades, the U.S. AID Agency, in particular, lamented that "only a handful of countries that started receiving U.S. development assistance in the 1950s and 1960s has ever graduated from dependent status" (U.S. AID, 1989; p.112).

The record in Africa was distressingly dismal. Africa, consisting of 54 countries, is the least developed region of the Third World despite its immense wealth in mineral and natural resources.

The statistics on Africa's postcolonial development record are horrifying. Indices of Africa's development performance have not only been dismal but have also lagged persistently behind those of other Third World regions. In 1997, GDP per capita for Africa was $560, compared to $4,230 for Latin America and $730 for Asia. Economic growth rates in Africa in the 1970s averaged only 4 to 5 percent while Latin America recorded a 6 and 7 percent growth rate. From 1986 to 1993 the continent's real GNP per capita declined 0.7 percent, while the average for the Third World increased by 2.7 percent.

For all of Africa, real income per capita dropped by 14.6 percent from its level in 1965, making most Africans worse off than they were at independence.

Agriculture, which employs the bulk of Africa's population, has performed abysmally. Since 1970 agricultural output has been growing at less than 1.5 percent -- less than the rate of population growth. Consequently, food production per capita declined by seven percent in the 1960s, by 15 percent in the 1970s, and by eight percent in the 1980s. Over the postcolonial period 1961 to 1995, "per capita food production in Africa dropped by 12 percent, whereas it advanced by leaps and bounds in developing countries in Asia" (The Economist, 7 September 1996).

Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, exported food when it was the Belgian Congo. Today, it cannot feed itself, nor can postcolonial Zambia, Sierra Leone and Tanzania. In 1990, about 40 percent of black Africa's food was imported, despite the assertion by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations that the Congo Basin alone could produce enough food to feed all of black Africa. The situation has deteriorated so rapidly in Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo that many people eat once a day.

The list of African economic success stories touted by the Clinton administration in 1994 (The Gambia, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania and Zimbabwe) shrunk to two (Ghana and Burkina Faso) although three new countries were added (Guinea, Lesotho, Eritrea and Uganda). However, the 1999 coup in Guinea, the senseless Ethiopian-Eritrean war and the eruption of civil wars in western and northern Uganda have knocked off most of the new "success stories."

Nor has "adjustment lending" by the World Bank and the IMF made much impact on poverty-reduction in Africa. In fact, the World Bank's own Report, Adjustment Lending in Africa released in March 1994 confirmed this. The World Bank evaluated the performance of 29 African countries it had provided more than $20 billion in funding to sponsor Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) over a ten-year period, 1981-1991, and concluded that, only six African countries had performed well: The Gambia, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. Six out of 29 gives a failure rate in excess of 80 percent. More distressing, the World Bank concluded, "No African country has achieved a sound macro-economic policy stance." Since then, the World Bank's list of "success stories" has shrunk.

The Gambia, Nigeria and Zimbabwe are no longer on the list and even on Ghana, the World Bank's own Operations Evaluation Department noted in its December 1995 Report that, "although Ghana has been projected as a success story, prospects for satisfactory growth rates and poverty reduction are uncertain."

A "fundamental change in thinking" needs to be undertaken in the academic community which formulated many of the orthodox theorems upon which development assistance were based.

Orthodox Approaches To Development

In the fifties, orthodox approaches to development entailed searching for common characteristics of under-development with the aim of finding clues to the causes of poverty. Identifying the characteristics of "under-development" involved a mental exercise of juxtapositioning a typical LDC against a developed country (DC) and isolating aberrant economic and social features.

The most elaborate list of such characteristics was provided by Leibenstein (1957). It was a summary of numerous empirical approaches to the phenomenon of under-development. Prominent were statistical facts about such items as the structure of employment, output, income, fertility and mortality rates, literacy and yield per acre. To this list other authors appended other characteristics such as "disguised unemployment" (Nurkse, 1953; Lewis, 1954) fragmented capital markets and financial repression (McKinnon; 1973).

Subsequent intellectual contributions, with a few notable exceptions, generally "tended towards one of two poles - introspective generalisations and immanent empiricism - both of which fall short of scientific analysis" (Yotopoulos and Nugent, 1976; p.11). Introspective generalisation was inspired by the evolution and growth of the developed countries (DCs) exclusively.

With methodological precepts of neo-classical economics developed in the DCs in the light of DC experience, introspection led to spinning simple and abstract theories and applying them to all countries including the less developed countries (LDCs). An outgrowth of this neo-classical predilection was the propensity to emphasise "key" constraints on development. Introspective generalisations also produced a variety of fundamentalist dogmas: capital fundamentalism, sectoral fundamentalism, planning fundamentalism, and import-substitution fundamentalism. Immanent empiricism, on the other hand, assigned an infinite weight to deviations from the "special case" of the DCs.

Instead of looking for a theory the immanent empiricist looked at a data hard and long enough until some "general principles" became clear, less by formal logic than by insight. This approach generated not only verbal heat but also myths about under-development that still persist in modern times.

Pre-occupation with capital was largely the result of direct international transfer of approaches developed for the DC, with minor modifications to fit the "special case" of the LDCs (Yotopoulos and Nugent, 1976; p.12). In the 1950s and the first quinquennium of the 1960s it was thought that labor was abundant in the LDCs; only the cooperant factors were in inadequate supply.

If only such auxiliary factors as capital could be augmented then poverty could be eradicated. The theoretical linchpin of capital fundamentalism was the Harrod-Domar model developed for the DCs. So important was capital that Lewis (1954) contended that, it was the "central problem in the theory of economic development." v Capital fundamentalism was implemented with a whole battery of policies for increasing savings. It was reckoned that domestic capital formation need not necessarily be constrained by inadequate domestic savings. Such savings could be supplemented by foreign savings or assistance. An even larger role was envisioned for foreign aid: to relieve other bottlenecks such as scarcities of foreign exchange and managerial skills impeded development (McKinnon, 1964; Chenery and Strout, 1966).

The ineffectiveness of foreign aid programmes has now become apparent. Their failure however derived not so much from the importance of capital per se but rather from the deficiencies in orthodoxy upon which such aid programmes were premised. Orthodox approaches to under-development whereby the DCs were used as standards of reference to isolate "key" constraints, to spin off abstract theories and prescribe solutions modelled after DC experience were flawed on methodological grounds.

By adopting an essentialist epistemology orthodox development economists misconstrued the process of development. Orthodoxy viewed development as a quantifiable and measurable production process whose rate of output could be manipulated by varying the amounts of certain "key" inputs or adding "missing" materials. All other non-quantifiable factors were dismissed as either irrelevant or non-economic. Aid, capital or machinery could be "parachuted" into any LDC and "presto!" economic growth would occur. Thus, little or no attention was paid to the attitudes or motivations of the workers who operated the machinery nor the general socio-economic environment within which the machinery had to operate.

Development, of course, does not take place in a vacuum. Politics, culture, ecology, respect for human rights, rule of law and international economic relations have as much to do with development as physical increases in Gross National Product (GNP). This environment consists of two parts: the external and the internal. The external is defined by international economic relationships, foreign aid policies and events, such an oil price hike, over which a LDC or an African country may have no control.

The internal environment, prevailing in an African country, is in turn composed of two parts: the traditional and the national. The traditional delineates indigenous value systems, beliefs, motivations and attitudes of the African people. The national environment is created by the government in power by the institution of its own rules and decrees. Of particular importance, are the enforcement mechanisms and the brutality or fairness with which breaches of government rules are prosecuted.

To African peasants, the majority in every African nation, the traditional environment is of greater relevance since they tend to conduct their economic activities more by age-old customs and traditions than by government directives they may not understand. However, the national environment is preemptory as government rules and regulations are backed by an awesome enforcement machinery. The national environment clashes violently with the traditional if a decree is imposed by force and ruthlessly enforced. Such clashes are commonplace occurrences in Africa. When they do occur, peasants generally respond by retreating into their traditional mould of rural life, self-sufficiency and subsistence farming or by "voting with their feet" out of the country -- illegal aliens and refugees.

For decades, development economists assumed this national environment to be a "constant." Accumulated evidence from Africa however no longer validates this assumption. On the contrary, this national environment has deteriorated alarmingly in many places, contributing in no small measure to Africa's deepening crisis. The national environment may be an amorphous concept, defying precise measurement but certain pertinent features can be identified for purposes of study with respect to their impact on development.

Development is a creative activity and GNP is the sum total of all goods and services produced in a country. People produce these goods and services. Therefore, in the African context, the true challenge of development is how to spur and release the creative energies of Africa's peasants, using their own existing institutions. The proper role of an African government is how to encourage and facilitate this human creative activity since innovation and creativity lie at the root of social progress.

Creative activity cannot occur unless certain conditions are prevalent. A person must have the freedom to invent and experiment with new ways. The peasant farmer must have the liberty to experiment with new crops and reap the rewards if successful. Similarly with other producers; from fishermen to writers and teachers. Such experimentation scarcely takes place in an atmosphere of violence, civil strife, insecurity, instability, and lawlessness where one is deprived of the fruits of one's labor without due process of law. Investment - both domestic and foreign - is the way out of Africa's economic miasma or the key to economic growth and poverty reduction. But Africa does not attract, rather it repels, investment because of a prevailing environment that is inimical to development. Increasingly, the continent has become unattractive to foreign investors.

When this environment is such that it encourages or induces people to greater effort, it is described as "enabling" or "conducive" to productive effort. Although an "enabling environment" is an intangible, amorphous concept, certain pertinent features can be isolated for purposes of study with respect to their impact on development. The World Bank (1989) identified "incentives and the physical infrastructure" as crucial. But a more expansive set of requirements for an "enabling environment" would include the following:

1. Security of persons and property

2. System of incentives

3. Rule of law

4. Basic functioning infrastructure

5. Stability: economic, political, and social

6. Basic freedoms: intellectual, political, and economic We shall focus on the rule of law, because it is a concept which it little understood.

The Rule of Law

Writing at the end of the Victorian Age, Professor A. V. Dicey elaborated and explained the doctrine as having three meanings, Supremacy of the Law, Equality before the Law and Rights of Personal Freedom.

The first meaning implies that law is supreme in the state. This is expanded to include a lot of meanings. It means that no man can be arrested and imprisoned except by the due process of the law. The citizen should not be victim of arbitrary use of power by the ruler(s). This the ruler(s) cannot be whimsical and capricious in their dealings with the governed.

That is, the power of the government should be exercised in accordance with the law. Consequently, the rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak alike are subject to and equal before the same law. Third meaning of the rule of law advocates that there should be respect for individual and group rights, freedoms and liberties. It also means that rights should be naturally vested in the individual but should not be conferred on him by the government. Thus, rights are God-given and they must be regarded as inherent in the individual. However, the idea of the rule of law has been redefined and broadened in scope to suit contemporary demands of politicking and democracy.

This was done in some detail by the International Commission of Jurists in their Declaration of Delhi in January 1959, which has also been reformulated in a document called The Law of Lagos in a special context of Africa at a congress held in Lagos in Januarys 1961. In its modern dress, the rule of law places emphasis on the need to create and maintain the conditions which will ensure the dignity of man as an individual to ensure his personality.

It requires the government to pay heed to the welfare of individuals. In the context of westernised state, this aspect of the rule of law demands complete code of social legislation. Ensuring the rule of law is very crucial to nation-building. Breaches of the rule of law have dire consequences on the society. It leads to chaos and unnecessary anxieties which may at a time culminate in a coup d'etat and installation of military juntas.

The relevance of observing the rule of law can also be found in the expression of one Greek philosopher that "a society is competent and prosperous because it is already just and not because it is already competent and prosperous."

Surely, the judges have a crucial role to play in ensuring the rule of law. The judiciary being the repository of the adjudicating authority in the state must ensure justice which is a sine qua non for development and prosperity. Thus, a well-functioning legal system offers security of persons and property. It also ensures that the laws of the land are obeyed by all, with no exceptions.

Individuals cannot do what they please outside their homes. In their interactions with others, they must follow the law. In other words, the law "rules," taking precedence over the whims or caprices of individuals. For example, the law may say that it is larceny to acquire property by stealing it from someone else. Anyone guilty of such a felony, whether that person is a doctor, a chief, or even the president of the country, shall be prosecuted and punished for all to see. Embezzlement or theft of public funds falls into this category, since the victim is the taxpayer. And when one's security is threatened or one's property is stolen, one does not "take the law into one's own hands" but follows laid-down procedure to seek a redress, usually by hauling the culprit, even if it is the government, into a court of law. When these conditions are met, the rule of law, which means respecting and following established ways of doing things, is said to prevail.

The rule of law is important for economic development because the constitution and the system of laws define the parameters or the legal framework within which economic activity or competition takes place. If the parameters are constantly being shifted or violated, confusion, uncertainty, or even chaos may result.

Economically, it is difficult to make investment plans when laws are suddenly abrogated and new decrees issued without notice and to take immediate effect. People cannot be expected to follow the rules when the authorities themselves flout the law or apply it capriciously to favour one person over another. It would not be fair to a competitor to see a rival company blatantly violating the law while the authorities look the other way.

TO BE CONTD