Kjell Havnevik

Tanzania : crisis and struggle for survival

This is one of the first comprehensive books on the crisis of the Tanzanian economy and society during the 1980s, including the manifestations of the problems and the responses to them at different ...

Framing African development : challenging concepts

Over time, the African continent has been framed by concepts that relate to its development, with some more comprehensive than others. The concepts were initially created outside the continent, primarily in Western institutions and agencies, and sought to describe and understand Africa, but also to legitimize external interventions driven by religious, military, political, economic, exploitative and altruistic motives. The concepts addressed in this book capture four themes that represent central aspects of the West’s framing of African development: (i) the concept of the “other”, addressing the question of culture and representation in the context of development, (ii) the concept of poverty and how to address it, i.e. the empowerment and livelihood concepts, (iii) concepts addressing displacement and comprising the concept of primitive accumulation, and (iv) concepts relating to food security and food sovereignty that connect to agricultural production-, sustainability-, rightsand power issues. In order to challenge the concepts selected and relating to the framing of African development, we find it necessary to understand their logic and the underlying process of their construction. In brief, to challenge the concepts mentioned above necessarily implies reflecting on the ways in which we in the West have historically developed our narratives in the social, economic, technological and cultural fields. This leads us to a critical analysis of the Western vision of Africa, its development and people.

A Blighted Harvest: The World Bank and African Agriculture in the 1980s

The theory of agricultural adjustment reforms, implementation and trends in six countries Ghana Kenya Mozambique Tanzania Uganda Zambia a review of the evidence interpreting the outcome.