| | This issue examines aspects of the allocation of resources in Africa. Few problems could be more central to the future of a continent where political and economic crisis persists. A generation after the formal end of colonialism and inception of the 'decade of development' in the 1960s, Africa continues to struggle for control over its resources and their development. In many ways the struggle does not go well. For over a century, the idea of a scramble for resources in Africa evoked images, first, of the colonial plunder of the continent and latterly, of corporate exploitation and expropriation. More recently, however, to speak of a scramble for resources brings to mind pictures of desperate, hungry people searching for food and security from war, of states seeking to attract investment in a world indifferent to their needs. New strategies have become necessary and a new commitment to economic and political development urgent. |
