Introduction

Abstract

The economic decline experienced by most of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) since the early 1980s has been characterised by poor macro-economic performance, weak agricultural sector growth and mounting external debt. The World Bank’s strategy of structural adjustment, an attempt to remove state controls from the economy in favour of the free market, has become a standard prescription across the continent as a way to reverse this situation. The adjustment strategy in SSA relied heavily on the assumption that market incentives would encourage a rapid and substantial increase in agricultural output, which in turn would be a key contributor to the revival of the overall economy. But, as is now well known, this strategy faced a number of difficulties in both its implementation and performance. Guinea’s experience with structural adjustment under the auspices of the World Bank in the mid-1980s has illustrated some of the most pressing problems encountered by African countries pursuing similar strategies. This book analyses these difficulties by examining Guinea’s adjustment experience. It looks at how economic reforms have affected the country’s agricultural sector as well as its overall political economy, and how this experience compared with that of other adjusting countries in sub-Saharan Africa over the past two decades.