Introduction

Abstract

These papers are the outcome of a project organised to examine the process, problems, and lessons learned as African countries attempted to recover from the economic decline in the 1980s, by reorientating policies away from state dominance of the economy. The discussions draw from experiences across the continent, but emphasise a subset of African countries that strongly embraced statist economic policies in the 1970s and 1980s by declaring themselves Marxist, including Angola, Congo, Tanzania, Madagascar, and Mozambique. These countries have some of the most unfavourable initial conditions for reforms, and represent a convenient group to discuss early experience of trying to adjust the role of the state. The project does not attempt comprehensive evaluation of the reform experience of the Afro-Marxist states. There is very little reliable information and data available on these countries. Instead, the effort was to pull lessons from experience on specific reform attempts from these economies, as well as other African countries.