Lost Decades or Blessing?

Economic depression and stagflation during the late 1970s as a result of the oil and debt crises heralded a new era of economic hardship for Africa. As Western powers grappled with the consequences of diminished energy resources and heightened inflation, Africa's role in the crisis narrative became paradoxically amplified, and the continent was wrongly blamed as the architect of its own economic turmoil. The ‘remedy’ proposed was free-market reforms to be delivered via structural adjustment. In simple terms, structural adjustment linked aid to a set of political and economic reforms that a country had to adhere to in order to secure a loan from the IMF or World Bank. Such free-market reforms were intended to deliver a new socioeconomic dawn to Africa, but instead, the continent moved backwards on almost all indicators. This tutorship approach was maintained primarily by European countries, although African intellectuals and some African leaders contributed to the situation. The lost decades that followed this ill-conceived approach allowed some actors to amass enormous profits and for corruption to thrive while social spending declined, and economic growth stagnated. In this chapter, we explore how foreign, mostly European, influence has endured in Africa even as countries have gained their independence and how late colonialism, characterised by a rent-seeking and extractive approach, and other post-independence economic assistance mechanisms have conspired to limit African nations.