The Problems of Labour in African Development

This topic is so vast, the workers so diverse in their skills, work attitudes, and cultural heritage, economic factors are so heavily over laid by political aspirations, and the process of change so rapid, that it is difficult to make any meaningful generalization about African labour. It may well be that the driving forces behind current changes in Africa are more psychological in character than economic, in that they represent the mass aspiration to assert the African’s equality with other peoples, socially, politically, and culturally, rather than the more limited desire for a higher standard of material wel fare.1 Nevertheless, if these political and other aspirations are to succeed they must rest upon a viable economic order, capable of not only maintaining itself, but also of providing a higher standard of living. This implies major structural changes in most African economies.