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The International Political Economy of Africa's Failed Industrialization: Terms of Trade, Sovereign Debt Crisis and Structural Adjustment Programs, 1960-2000

Okeleke, Justice Chibuzor, Asenime, Jude Azuka PhD

Abstract

This study historicizes the failure of meaningful industrialisation and structural transformation in post-colonial Africa from 1960 to 2000. It argues that Africa's de-industrialisation was not merely a consequence of internal governance failures but was structurally constrained by a historical continuum of adverse incorporation into the global economy through three interrelated mechanisms: deteriorating terms of trade, global debt entrapment, and externally imposed Structural Adjustment Programmes . Using qualitative historical methodology anchored on Dependency and World Systems Theory, the study employs comparative case studies of Nigeria, Ghana, Zambia, and Tanzania. Findings show that commodity price collapse between 1973-1982 reduced foreign exchange earnings by over 35 percent, triggering external borrowing that became unsustainable after the Volcker Shock of 1979. Debt servicing, which reached 40-69 percent of export earnings, forced African states to adopt IMF/World Bank SAP. SAP conditionalities of trade liberalisation, currency devaluation, privatisation and austerity systematically dismantled the fragile industrial base, reducing manufacturing value added from 17 percent of GDP in 1980 to 12 percent by 2000. The study concludes that SAP represented a re-colonisation of African economic policy and that current AfCFTA and Agenda 2063 initiatives must prioritize selective protection and local value addition to avoid repeating the trap.

References

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