Introduction

Economic performance in the majority of African countries has been disappointing since the 1970s. While there has been some improvement since the lows of the 1980s in reforming countries, the improvement has been short of what is needed to raise per capita income. The poor economic performance in Sub-Saharan Africa defies simple explanations, but there are some commonalities in past economic policies important for the discussions in this book. During the 1970s and part of the 1980s many governments on the African continent embraced state-led development strategies. Government efforts to use state institutions to compensate for the small base of indigenous capital and skill reflected the dominant development thinking at the time of independence.