In the late 1970s the economies of Africa's newly independent states began to wobble. By the mid-1980s, few had been left unscathed by oscillating commodity prices and global interest rate shocks, and most governments were battling to maintain social cohesion as public revenue contracted, farmers saw their incomes collapse, and formal sector pay fell in real terms. By 1994, 84% of Africa's population lived in countries where income per capita was lower than it had been in 1974. It would take until the late 1990s before the continent began a sustained recovery.
Funded by the ESRC, Africa's Long Depression seeks to historicise this episode and shed light on questions of contemporary relevance — particularly given that many African governments today face a similar constellation of challenges, as commodity prices oscillate, debt burdens rise, and aid flows dwindle.
The project's findings are being developed into a book of the same title, under contract with Princeton University Press. It asks when and how African economies stalled, how much of their disappointing performance can be attributed to global economic swings, why so many countries remained caught in a growth stasis for the best part of two decades, and whether the structural conditions that exacerbated the crisis have changed since. Drawing on a range of secondary literature, archival sources and new data analysis, the book offers an economic history of this era of lost growth — written to be accessible to policymakers and general readers as well as specialists.